A great thriller set in Victorian England. The story follows the lives of Dorothea, a well to do young woman and Ruth, a poor young girl who has had a tragic life of poverty, loss and violence however despite this she is a brilliant seamstress. Dorothea tries to unravel the truth of Ruth's life. I was a little disappointed with the ending but it is a very different and unusual story, my first book from this author. The book is loosely based on a true story.

It took me a while to get through Laura Purcell's 'The Corset' I'll admit. I kept putting it down and then coming back to it. That is no reflection on the book's quality however, as I'm 99% sure that this is my favourite read of the year. I'd been hoping for something historical with a touch of the supernatural to keep me on my toes. That's exactly what I got, and I couldn't be happier!

I loved the huge attention to detail that Purcell invested in this story. It's historical fiction, meaning it would have required a considerable amount of research and time put into crafting the world! Purcell pulled this off with such skill that I was totally invested and hooked by this gothic thriller, and I really enjoyed every element. I also really liked the characters, especially Ruth and Dorothea, our two POVs. Ruth's dark, tormented past really juxtaposed nicely with some of the frivolous dramas of Dorothea's life and each provided a break from the other. They intertwined so nicely that I desperately wanted a resolution to both!

Though I found nothing in this book that I really disliked, I have to say that the ending felt a little neglected by contrast to the rest of the story. It was spectacular, a phenomenal plot twist that I did not see coming, but it was over far too quickly. I had to reread it at least twice to understand because it was all written into one, short chapter. I'd have liked to see a little more on the consequences of the twist rather than ending it so promptly, but I really have no complaints on this book as a whole. Purcell has a really great knack for plot, pacing and immersion.

Ever since I read The Silent Companions I absolutely fell in love with Laura Purcell. Her brand of Gothic had just the right blend of spooky and of course, love of my life, it was set in the 19th Century. When The Corset came up on NetGalley I immediately requested in and was thankfully accepted.

The Corset is the story of Ruth who ends up working as a seamstress in a dress shop after her parents can no longer look after her. The work is gruelling and the company is worse. The Mother and Daughter that she 'works' for are cruel and she is left with no idea of a future. After a rather disturbing event with a needle and thread Ruth begins to believe the things she sews are cursed, including the eponymous corset.

The thing I love about Laura Purcell is that every time I think this is going to be your standard 19th Century domestic drama, things just get dark. So dark. And sometimes I can see where the story is going to, all the signs are there, but there's always a part of me that thinks surely it won't get that awful. Will it? Oh it does. So many times I actually said "what!" out loud. It's so gripping.

As much fun as this story was there was obviously an underlying sadness, for Ruth, for the things that have happened in her life that twisted her ability to understand the things that are happening around her. She lives with so much guilt, mostly for things that are not her fault.

Dorothea is an interesting character to. She sits in the part of society that had no real use for its women other than to produce children, so she puts a lot of her energy into trying to help and understand Ruth's story. She represents the scientific theories of psychology manifesting in physical attributes, called phrenology, within the confines of what is acceptable for a woman to be involved in. She works to balance Ruth's character and bring the gothic fantasy back to the dark Victorian reality.

My final thought is that if you like a story that makes you never want to stop reading then you have to get your hands on The Corset.

Sixteen-year-old seamstress Ruth Butterham is convinced she has the ability to harm others by stitching evil thoughts into her needlework. She is awaiting trial for the murder of her mistress when wealthy Dorothea Truelove meets her in the Oakgate Women's prison. Dorothea has a keen interest in phrenology and wants to study Ruth's 'crania', believing it to be "the palace of the soul". She thinks Ruth may be able to change the shape of her skull if she works to amend her murderess ways.
This is the premise of The Corset, the latest gothic mystery from Laura Purcell, author of the very successful Silent Companions - another haunting tale where the reader questions whether the main character is victim to a supernatural evil or human evil.
The story alternates effectively between Dorothea's and Ruth's points of view. Ruth recounts her upbringing living in poverty with her alcoholic artist father, and her ailing mother, who works tirelessly stitching clothes for the demanding Mrs Metyard. After a violent attack by a fellow schoolgirl, Ruth channels her feelings of anger and resentment into the stitching of a corset. A series of tragic events follow, leading Ruth to believe she is responsible - but is she really cursed or is it all coincidence?
The Corset is inspired by the true story of Sarah and Sally Metyard, a mother and daughter who operated a milliner in London in 1758 and who abused an apprentice so badly that she died, resulting in the pair being hung for the murder. Ruth is sold by her mother to the fictional version of Mrs Metyard following the death of her father, where she and four other girls are subject to horrific treatment at the hands of Mrs Metyard and her daughter, Kate. Laura Purcell skilfully describes Ruth's torment, encouraging a great sympathy for her as a character and causing the reader to question how she could possibly be a vindictive killer. However, Dorothea believes Ruth must be lying because her story doesn't match up with what Dorothea feels in the shape of Ruth's skull.
Anthropological studies have shown that the tight lacing of corsets could change the skeleton of the wearer and for some, the position of their organs. The metaphor of the suffocating and restrictive corset rings true for both Dorothea and Ruth. Dorothea feels trapped by her father's expectations of her - she should not be "spouting on about criminals, or science, or any other topics a young lady should be ignorant upon." He wants her to marry well, but Dorothea compares being a society wife to "standing in a bog" and instead wants to marry a policeman and live in London. Ruth experiences a similar lack of control over her life, unable to escape the clutches of the Metyard's for fear that harm will come to her mother and believing herself to be the victim of her own hand.
Purcell's writing is visceral and several scenes make for uncomfortable reading, particularly a description of Ruth's mother's graphic childbirth experience and the girls' violent treatment at the hands of the Metyards. The plot is as expertly woven as Ruth's handiwork, with a few shocking twists, including one involving Mrs Metyard's beastly husband, The Captain. The conclusion is tightly sewn, leading the reader to the true villain of the piece. Another triumph for Laura Purcell, The Corset is chilling, brutal and spellbinding reading that leaves no loose threads.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through Netgalley.I hadn't heard of the author before so had no preconceptions.I found it took a while to get in to the story -it's a book you need to spend time reading- but once you do it is worthwhile.It's a Gothic thriller set in Victorian times, about two women,Ruth who is in prison for murder ,and Dorothea,a wealthy young woman who does good works by visiting prisoners .
Gradually we find out Ruth's story,and it's a shocker.She is sold to a dressmaker to pay of her mother's debts where she is treated like a slave and subjected to great cruelty..She begins to believe that she can curse people who she sews for through the stitches in the garments,and we begin to,wonder whether this is true. The story of events leading to the murder unfold gradually ,as the story is interspersed with Dorothea 's story.
I found it had some links to what is happening today with modern slavery-quite a lot of similarities with some of the horrific tales we are hearing about the treatment of young women in some places.
It's a very well-told story, a bit gruesome in parts,but overall a good read.

Laura Purcell is a marvel. Once again she has crafted a gripping, eerie gothic tale that keeps you guessing ‘til the end. Her writing is so evocative I had to avoid reading this at night! Very excited to see what she does next.

A tale of a young uneducated girl; Ruth, over come by her talent as a skilful seamstress. She believes her skills have made her a murderer. She aides her mother to help her family earn money to survive by sewing for Mrs Metyard.
The family come under even harsher times with two deaths in the family and Ruth has to become Mrs Metyard's apprentice to pay for the work that her mother and her couldn't finish. Ruth's life becomes even more unpleasant and she worries again that her skills have caused more harm.
Ruth ends up in prison for murder of her mistress. But has she been framed?

Inspired by the true story of thirteen-year-old Ann Nailor, who died in 1758 at the hands of a mother and daughter both named Sarah Metyard, The Corset by Laura Purcell is a wonderfully written novel featuring two very different women from opposite ends of Victorian society.

Twenty-five-year-old genteel woman Dorothea Truelove has an interest in phrenology and wonders if the shape of a person's head can make someone a criminal or if they're a victim of circumstance, much to her father's chagrin. Dorothea visits Oakgate women's prison in search of test subjects and it's here she's introduced to sixteen-year-old Ruth Butterham, who has been imprisoned having confessed to murdering her mistress. But is Ruth's tale of poverty, abuse, suicide and murder true? As Dorothea learns more about Ruth's dreadful past, we join her in wanting to know whether Ruth has supernatural abilities or if she's delusional.

At the age of 12, Ruth is a talented, self-taught seamstress, helping her mother work from home sewing articles of clothing for the Metyard's dressmaking business. When a series of unfortunate events leads the Butterham family to fall on hard times, Mrs. Metyard agrees to take Ruth on as an apprentice. Unbeknown to Ruth's mother, however, who believes she's doing what's best for her daughter, Mrs. Metyard isn't who she seems and the proposition is little more than an opportunity for Mrs. Metyard to get her claws into and enslave young Ruth, putting her to work in horrific Dickensian-esque sweatshop-like conditions.

Utterly miserable, Ruth continues to slave away for the Metyards and as each thread of her story is explored, readers become immersed in a dark world where Ruth has to fight for survival. But when people start falling ill and dying under mysterious circumstances, Ruth realises she isn't just pouring her love and energy into her creations; her deepest, darkest feelings go into her work too, leading Ruth to begin thinking she's responsible and that it all started with her needle and thread...

While atmospheric, wonderfully written and dripping with Gothic imagery, from the outset the story at the heart of The Corset is bleak. Highlighting the abject poverty and exploitation of the poor in Victorian society, there isn't much happiness to be found between the pages. Yet Ruth's determination to survive, combined with the need to know whether or not Ruth actually did commit the murder she's confessed to - and if so, if she possesses supernatural abilities - kept me turning the pages. I also enjoyed the slow-reveal revenge plot, and the way Purcell cleverly drip fed it to us throughout, leading to a clever finale.

I don't want to say much more as to do so would likely spoil the novel for anyone that hasn't read it yet. Suffice to say, this book is quite unlike anything I've read so far this year and that's definitely a good thing.

Ruth Butterham is awaiting her hanging in a women's jail, and is pretty secure in her crime. When rich do-gooder, Dorothea Truelove visits Ruth with an aim to study phrenology and use Ruth as a test subject, she ends up finding out the real truth behind Ruth's crimes, and the strange power with needle and thread that Ruth believes she wields. But is Ruth just a poor girl framed for murder, or does she really possess a wicked power?

I really enjoyed this and I think this is a great book to read during the Autumn months if you don't want something outright scary, but just a book that will leave you feeling a slight chill and raise some goosebumps on your skin. I really enjoyed the Victoria setting, and I think Laura Purcell always manages to capture a woman's lot at this time really well, be it a rich spinster like Dorothea or a young girl like Ruth forced to work like a slave to help her family. This book was dark and grimy but it a way that suited the tale really well, and I could easily picture a small home, lit with a single candle and a mother and daughter struggling to sew in the corner to earn their bread and butter - all in the shadow of rich women buying their wares, willfully blind to the suffering of those below them.

The way this book is written reminded me a lot of Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. It's really up to the reader for the most part to decide if Ruth is guilty or not, and I love that questions are left hanging at the end. I actually enjoyed this book better than AG, and I found Ruth a skilled storyteller and she was easy to feel for. Dorothea was definitely harder to get along with, and was certainly high and mighty at the best of times but I did enjoy her interactions with people as well and the slight cheekiness she showed at times.

I do really recommend this book for anyone looking for a chilling tale, and one with a great foot in Victoria history that brings the era to life - not with colour but with shadows and death.

I absolutely loved The Silent Companions, Laura Purcell's first novel so I was delighted to be given an e copy of her latest work The Corset. I wasn't disappointed! It is a totally different story to her first novel but she has already got a recognisable style, which I love.

The Corset, combined genres, time period and hobbies that I love, so it was right up my street. I love anything Victorian and gothic is one of my favourite genres. The Corset was also about a girl who sews (one of my hobbies) so I could relate and loved all the descriptions of the clothes and how they were made.

It also, like Purcell's first novel, explored the emergence of psychology, this time focusing on phrenology. Dorothea is a great believer that the shape of someone's head would have an impact on their character and behaviour. When she meets Ruth, a prisoner who believes she has murdered several people through her stitching, her hypothesis is tested. I won't say much more so I don't spoil it for you, but let me just say - it has many threads and unexpected twists and turns!

I will look forward to Laura Purcell's next book!

This took me awhile to get into and i am glad i carried on with it. This book felt like a straight version of Sarah Waters' Affinity and i mean that in a complimentary way! The relationship between Ruth and Dorethea was interesting and it was great to see how it progressed throughout. This was such a great read and it kept me hooked and needing to now what happened next. The world that Purcell built was done really well and was great to see research into the early Victorian era done well.

I usually feel it is incredibly unfair to rate and review a book that I DNFed, however in this case I feel like I need to explain why I set this book aside, as I'm such a huge fan of the author's previous book. I ended up reading through the first 50% of The Corset before deciding it was not for me.

I adored Laura Purcell's debut novel, The Silent Companions. The Gothic setting, the unreliable narrator, the supernatural elements -- it was the perfect book for me. I devoured it in a few days and couldn’t wait to get my hands on The Corset. I was naturally expecting this book to be similar enough to The Silent Companions, however The Corset’s similarities to the previous book are pretty shallow. They’re both Victorian Gothic tales and both feature women as the main characters. Both have incredibly compelling sounding plots. But for me, The Corset was poorly executed and needed a bit more work.

Where The Silent Companions was well paced and plotted, The Corset could have used a lot more trimming, particularly in Ruth’s chapters. There are two points of view -- Dorethea the phrenology-obsessed heiress who does charity work in the nearby prison, and Ruth, a seamstress who has been convicted of murder. I wanted to enjoy both of these women’s stories, and I liked Dorthea's well enough despite the fact that it didn't get much of a chance to progress, however Ruth’s chapters were so bogged down with descriptions of physical abuse and tragedy. This led to her character becoming incredibly flat and uninteresting to me because things happened to her -- she felt like an empty vessel that had things happen to her, rather than an active character with agency. Abuse is something I can handle in books, but it has to have a point. The sheer volume of abuse and torment in The Corset just felt utterly pointless, which in turn made the narrative drag. Because so many words and pages are dedicated to the descriptions of Ruth’s torment, the supernatural elements that I was so looking forward to were only lightly touched upon. I feel awful for saying so, as Ruth was suffering so badly, but I was bored -- it felt like there was no point to the plot.

I really wanted to love The Corset but it just didn’t work for me. I know I’m in the minority here, so I encourage you to pick it up and see what you think on your own. Despite my feelings on this book, I’m still looking forward to reading whatever she comes up with next.

Halfway through, haven’t picked it up for two days and feel depressed every time I think of trying to read on, so I’m stopping.

The writing’s fine – not brilliant, but fine. The characterisation is pretty poor, especially of Dorothea, whose voice never rings true. However the reason I'm abandoning it is because, for me, horror rests in the mysterious, the vague, the psychological, sometimes the macabre, not in detailed descriptions of blood-soaked childbirth-gone-wrong scenes, or gruesome descriptions of babies dying of diphtheria. I know there’s a big market out there for tasteless gore-fests, but I’m not part of that market, and was sucked in by this because I was promised a Gothic chiller. Anyone can make someone feel horrified by describing scenes of gore and abuse – there’s no skill in it. The skill comes in creating horror through suggestion, by strange manifestations, macabre circumstances, or through the distortion of insanity. Purcell tries for most of that, but seemingly with a complete lack of confidence in her own ability to achieve true horror, chooses to throw in simple scenes of detailed disgust at every opportunity. A waste of an intriguing idea. I read horror to be chilled, to have my spine tingled, ultimately to be entertained; not to be made to feel revolted and nauseated.

Not for me.

Determined to learn more about phrenology and test her hypothesis that the shape of a person’s skull can determine whether or not they will commit a crime, Dorothea Truelove regularly visits prisoners at Oakgate Prison. Ruth Butterham is the youngest murderess Dorothea has visited, who offers an alternative theory: She claims her crimes are caused by a supernatural power in her sewing. Is Ruth mad, or a murderer?

The Corset is undoubtedly dark, but not a horror like The Silent Companions. Instead, it is more of a murder mystery story with supernatural vibes. The narrative is told through the perspective of both Dorothea and Ruth, as Ruth explains her story and Dorothea tries to get to the bottom of things. The two women come from very different backgrounds, with very different outlooks, and complement each other exceptionally well. The writing is a joy to read, with each woman’s voice clearly distinct and well-developed.

I found this book compelling, original and unpredictable, but not particularly creepy (which would be totally fine, if it wasn’t marketed as “chilling”). It also felt slightly too long at times. I’m not sure that I could pull out specific parts of the story and label them as unnecessary, but there were moments where things started to drag and I felt myself rushing to reach the end.

I have seen other readers complain that The Corset includes too many characters, but I personally didn’t fell that this was a problem. Yes, there is a reasonably large cast, but Dorothea and Ruth really hold the story and the rest, even those who play a big role, fade into the background a little. That could sound like a criticism, but it isn’t. I found this book incredibly easy to read and didn’t find myself worrying about other characters in the slightest.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Excellent book with a great storyline. Characters that are so well written. I would highly recommend this book to anyone!

Laura Purcell first came to my attention as the author of a couple of very fine pieces of historical fiction, and earlier this year, I awarded her fabulous, spooky supernatural/gothic mystery The Silent Companions DIK status and gushed about it to everyone who crossed my path! I’ve been waiting eagerly to read her next novel The Corset, another mystery set in Victorian England, this time, featuring two very different women who are brought together in the gloomy surroundings of a London prison.

Dorothea Truelove is pragmatic, intelligent and privileged. She is heiress to a considerable sum, but continually resists her father’s attempts to find her an eligible husband, preferring instead to concentrate on her scientific interests and the young, most definitely ineligible policeman with whom she is in love. Dorothea has become fascinated by phrenology – a pseudoscience that posited that a person’s character could be determined by the measurements of their skull and that personality, thoughts and emotions were located in certain specific regions of the brain – and is furthering her knowledge by visiting female inmates at Oakwood Gate Prison. She is keen to meet the latest new arrival, a sixteen-year-old girl called Ruth Butterham who has confessed to the murder of her employer and several other people, and to study the size and shape of her skill, believing her research could help “devise a system to detect, scientifically, without a doubt, all evil propensities in the young” and thereby a way of preventing them from becoming criminals.

Ruth Butterham couldn’t be more different to Dorothea. A talented seamstress, Ruth’s life has been blighted by tragedy, poverty and horror; when her father commits suicide, she and her sick mother are forced to seek help from Mrs. Metyard, a popular modiste for whom Ruth’s mother often does piece-work. In desperation, Ruth’s mother more or less sells Ruth to Mrs. Metyard, believing that a roof over her head and regular meals will be better for Ruth than anything she can provide, which is why, aged just twelve, Ruth finds herself subjected to abuse and exploitation alongside four other girls, all of them terribly mistreated, half-starved and regularly beaten.

The story is told from both Dorothea’s and Ruth’s points of view, the latter in the form of the tale she is telling Dorothea and her thoughts and feelings upon it. Ruth tells how she came to believe that she had the ability to impart her feelings through her needle and into her work, and how she has been able to cause harm to those who harmed her by weaving her hatred and anger into her sewing. Dorothea is at first fascinated and excited at the prospect of being able to examine the head shape and size of a murderess, but soon becomes annoyed and frustrated; what she is hearing from Ruth’s lips and learning from her skull shape and measurements don’t match up at all, because her centres of morality and memory are too well developed for someone who is clearly telling so many lies.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Dorothea’s narrative is somewhat less engrossing than Ruth’s. She doesn’t have to worry about where her next meal is coming from, or whether dropping this plate or that candle will result in a vicious beating (which happens in Ruth’s story); her problems are trivial by comparison, as she fumes about the fact that her father is planning to marry a woman she dislikes intensely, and over his attempts to force her into marriage. That said, the parallels the author draws between the women in relation to how little control either has over their lives is relevant and nicely done, showing clearly that gender was a great leveller, still the biggest obstacle to a woman having choices, no matter her social or financial status. The corset is certainly an interesting metaphor, applied just as well to the garments that restricted women’s movement as to the rigid conventions that restricted their behaviour and opportunities.

As is the case with the other books I’ve read by Laura Purcell, The Corset is beautifully written, and her research has clearly been impeccable. The descriptions of what Ruth goes through – the poverty, the despair, the cruelty – have a visceral impact and make Ruth an easy figure to sympathise with, but they were also a little too gory at times for my taste, and there were elements of unnecessary repetition that didn’t enhance or further the story. And here I have a confession to make; the reveal that came around the half-way point was so daft that it actually made me want to snort with laughter rather than hide behind the sofa.

I find I can’t write about The Corset without reference to Ms. Purcell’s previous novel, The Silent Companions, which is one of the best modern gothic novels I’ve read. Deeply atmospheric and seriously creepy, it worked so well because there was genuine doubt as to what was really going on; was the heroine subject to supernatural forces or mere human evil? Whatever the answer arrived at by the reader, both options were equally terrifying. In this novel, however, there is no real horror (unless you count the account of the birth of Ruth’s sister, or the gloopy slime of the decaying fish one of the other girls put into Ruth’s work-basket), or sense of the unexpected. I was never really convinced by Ruth’s belief that she could somehow sew malevolence into the garments she made and embroidered, which always seemed to me to be something latched on to by a girl so traumatised by loss and despair that she would believe anything if it meant she was able to exercise even the smallest amount of control over her circumstances.

The characterisation of both leads is extremely strong, Ruth’s naïve, trusting nature tempered by an incredible resilience and endurance while Dorothea, ostensibly a good young woman with a penchant for doing good works, turns out to be something of a self-righteous prig. Ms. Purcell interweaves their narratives skilfully and in such a way as to give the reader time to reflect upon their reliability, and the final chapters and slowly evolving revenge plot are incredibly well done; for my money, the final twenty percent of the novel is easily worth the price of admission alone. But for all the great things the book has going for it, I wasn’t as drawn into it as I’d hoped to be, which I freely admit may be because I had such high expectations and had hoped for more of what I found in the author’s previous novel.

The Corset nonetheless earns a solid recommendation courtesy of its superb writing, strong characterisation and intriguing storylines. The novel’s flaws don’t outweigh its strengths by any means, and anyone looking for a gritty, well-written and well-researched gothic mystery could do worse than give it a try.

The Corset recounts the stories of two women, Dorothea Truelove and Ruth Butterham. The story is set in Oakgate, a town large enough for a new prison and a debtors jail (but small enough that they have to wait for the assizes to come round for Ruth’s court case to happen) and with a brilliant supporting cast of mid 19th Century folk from both the upper and lower classes. All of life is here, and it’s generally not as pleasant as the turns Dorothea likes to take around the botanical gardens.

Genteel Dorothea is a young lady with an interest in both prison reform and phrenology; her prison visits provide her with plenty of candidates for having their bumps read; her life is not without misfortune but she is comfortably off, certainly more so that many of the characters we encounter as Laura Purcell takes us further into Ruth’s world. Ruth’s life, as she recounts it to both the reader and Dorothea over the course of the book, has been one of poverty and abuse.

Like many of her class at the time, Ruth’s short life has never been happy. The daughter of an impoverished artist (a drinker) and a seamstress, Ruth is bullied at the school her parents can barely afford to send her to (anyone who’s ever been on the receiving end will recognise the fury and shame Ruth at the hands of the nasty girls, her tormentors). Ruth returns home after being attacked one last time, and with her cheap corset destroyed, to find her pregnant mother, Jemima, struggling to complete her piecework – “the Metyard work”.

It is in helping to make a pair of wedding gloves that Ruth begins to believe there is something uncanny about her abilities with the needle, the pattern appears without effort, she is in a trance like state, she clearly has talent. Ruth steals scraps to make a new corset for herself, sewing at night in secret. When she puts the corset on she finds she cannot take it off again. Yet more strange things happen in connection with Ruth’s sewing, and she is convinced she has power – through her needle – to affect the lives of those she sews for.

Dorothea is not without troubles of her own. Her mother died of a ‘wasting disease’ when she was seven, leaving her on the care of her father, who tolerates her social works, but is very much trying to marry her off to someone suitable (he isn’t aware she’s fallen for a common police constable, who she considers running off with throughout the book). Dorothea studies phrenology in memory of her mother, in fact she’s quite obsessed by it – as convinced that bumps in the skull affect a person’s actions and personality as Ruth is about her influence with a needle and thread.

We are lead into each of our protagonists inner lives via the double first person narrative – I found both Ruth and Dorothea compelling characters, and Dorothea occasionally a little annoying!Both these women have been trapped all their lives. Dorothea, for all her money and comfort, is unhappy and longs for her freedom. Just as her pet canary Wilkie is allowed out of his cage but cannot fly away, Dorothea can visit the prison and indulge in her ‘scientific’ research, but she is always accompanied, always overseen, be that by her moody maid Tilda, the matron or her father.

Poor Ruth, we find out, has been to hell and not quite back. ‘Apprenticed’ by her indebted mother to the absolutely dreadful Mrs Metyard, Ruth becomes little more than another slave in the Metyard’s dressmaking business, an organisation with abuse at its heart. The team of apprentices Ruth joins are all Foundling children; Miriam (‘the blackamoor’) becomes Ruth’s only friend in this terrible place.

Physical punishment and exploitation are the norm at the Metyards and this novel goes to very dark places; madness, murder and destitution to name but a few. I felt Ruth’s despair at her fellow captives – none of them lift a finger to help any of the others – particularly Miriam who is already ‘other’, being black and even more exploited than the rest of them. But the point I think is that these children (none of them are older than fifteen) are terrified and institutionalised. The only light in Ruth’s life comes from Billy Rooker – blue-eyed, cheerful and kind to her – a former apprentice at Metyards who managed to get away via adoption to the draper supplying fabric to the shop. But why he is engaged to Mrs Metyard’s waspish daughter Kate is a mystery to Ruth .

This novel is not a relentless expose of the terrible lives of the Victorian poor, which Purcell writes very well; there are passages in here which I found very upsetting to read and it can’t have been easy to write them. The Metyards and their household are a creation worthy of Dickens, their world is vividly drawn – exploitation and violence keeps business going – the fine ladies they supply either don’t know, or don’t care, what goes on in attic and basement (and is this really any different to the issues around clothing manufacture today).

At its heart the Corset is it at heart a mystery story. Or more accurately a number of mystery stories – is Ruth telling the truth? Dorothea begins to wonder, or is she deliberately lying about events. Is her own phrenology work worthwhile, and is all as it seems in Dorothea’s own seemingly fairly settled life. All this is stitched together and deftly tied off by Purcell at the end

5 Words: Power, control, family, betrayal, love.

Content Warning: Child abuse, difficult pregnancy, graphic violence.

I'd read a few reviews prior to picking up The Corset, so I was ready for a dark book. Or so I thought. But The Corset was far darker than I had imagined.

The writing and the story are addictive. I could not put this book down. The story is told by Dorothea's present narrative and Ruth's reflection on her past as she tells her story. I have to say that of the two narrators, Ruth was my favourite. She goes through so much but still feels so strongly, she was so well developed. I really felt for her.

The Corset explored the power of hate and anger and manipulation. It examines humanity with a dark gaze, with a need for revenge pressing in from all sides of the story. It is chilling.

This is the perfect Gothic horror, full of twists and turns and an "is it supernatural?" undercurrent. It is dark and unsettling and shocking, and as a reader I loved that I had the choice to believe in the supernatural. It is brooding and at all times I had this sense of dread - who would be next? Does she really have the power? Will they be OK?

The ending of The Corset was exceptional. Although it did pan out rather how I'd guessed at the beginning, I was still completely shocked by it. Mouth agape shocked. The writing is truly masterful.

Plot: Set in Victorian times, Ruth Butterham is incarcerated in a women’s prison for murder; Dorothea Truelove is a wealthy, young women who visits women in the prison to study their heads – feeling the bumps for signs of their madness or lack thereof. Ruth’s story has her intrigued though – a young girl who seems more victim than murderer, believing herself to have not only killed the person she’s been arrested for, but many, many others – and all with just a needle and thread.

My thoughts: Having read and loved Laura Purcell’s previous book, The Silent Companions (reviewed here), I was so excited to see she had a new release and I wasn’t disappointed. Purcell’s gothic settings are, in my eyes, perfect, and make for a good wintery read. Told in alternating chapters, I preferred reading Ruth’s story, even though it was the more harrowing of the two, however Dorothea was also an interesting character too – I find it’s often hard to balance having two interesting characters in alternating chapter viewpoints, so it was definitely well done.
The Corset is, admittedly, a harrowing tale, that merges murder, phrenology, madness in Victorian times, poverty, workplace (and child) abuse and sewing all into one story. It’s a lot to pack in but does it very successfully in my opinion.

The Corset stitches together the lives of two young women in (I think) the early Victorian period.

Dorothea Truelove is an heiress in her mid 20s, unmarried, socially isolated since her (deceased0 mother converted to Roman Catholicism and in danger of being labelled a spinster. While she fills her time productively with prison visiting and the study of phrenology (the notion, long since disproved, that character and behaviour could be inferred by measurements of the head) this isn't enough to satisfy her father that she has a decent place in Society and she's being encouraged - rather, pressured - to find a husband.

Ruth Butterham has fallen on very hard times. Raised in genteel poverty, she has lost both her parents and, though a truly awful chain of circumstances, ended in prison, still in her teens, accused of murder. The irony of this is that as we gradually learn, her situation in New Oakgate Prison is less precarious - the charge apart - than much of her life to date.

We hear Ruth's story as told to Dorothea, who has her own agendas and prejudices - trying to reconcile what she's told with head measurements, musing on how far the character is fixed or can improve (we learn the reason for her obsession with that very late in the book) and, very gradually, falling apart because of the tension between her love - or perhaps infatuation - with David, a handsome (but poor) police constable, and the pressure to marry some fusty (but rich) suitor.

I found Dorothea, for much of a book, to be a rather annoying character. At first she seems introduced mainly as a device to narrate Ruth's much more interesting (and often harrowing) story and as such, she often seems to slow down, comment on or filet what Ruth's trying to tell us. While Dorothea's own family situation is less than ideal she seems, to use a modern concept, very unconscious of her privilege and it's easy to dislike her.

That would, though, be a mistake. I won't say much because of spoilers but Dorothea does have her own interest in Ruth's story and while her situation may seem less desperate, she is also a woman in a nakedly patriarchal society, unlikely to be able to find happiness or indeed, any life at all in which her own choices are respected.

In that respect Dorothea's in the same situation as Ruth. Purcell is an adept at plotting, and you can only really appreciate how the two women's experiences intertwine and question each other once you've finished the book. In the same way, you can only understand the hints of the supernatural which runs like a silver thread through the story when all the acts of this tragedy are completed. And when you grasp both those things I think you'll forgive a lot - not least Dorothea's air of self-satisfaction ("David lacks my discipline, even with his police training") and judgement, and Ruth's fatalism and self-doubt - because it's clear these things have been instilled in the two. Dorothea notes that "As with most female subjects, a hollow is apparent at Self-Esteem". Ruth is convinced of her own guilt, and who's going to take the trouble to review what really happened and decide whether that actually is the case? The arm of the patriarchy here is indeed long, and strong. A great theme of this book is the way men treat women and indeed, the way they treat women with whom they have become bored, or who are inconvenient or socially embarrassing: the book is scathing and illustrates this cruelty from many different angles - without ever yielding men the chief place in the story. What happens here is sometimes painful to read, but I found my reading sustained by a sympathy for Ruth and a growing sympathy for Dorothea. They are great characters.

What I found slightly harder at first was what I saw as a sense of unevenness in the language. This is a Victorian set novel, and the characters generally behave and speak as Victorians yet we also sometimes get what to me look like very modern phrases: "I'm going to check you", "set it up", "crime scene" or "We're in this together, now". It's hard to think Purcell would be sloppy about such matters - much of the prose in this book is so on point: (repeated references to the copper smell of money, "The spirit went but the filth lingered", "It whispered of revenge and power, of taking back control" and many, many more) that I suspect either she knows from her research that these phrases are perfectly apt (I recal my reaction the first time I came across the mention of baseball in Jane Austen) or, perhaps, more daringly, that they are a hint we should be a bit more generous in seeing "historical" characters as "people like us".

After all, unless you were Boris Johnson, you wouldn't pick up a book set in Ancient Rome and expect it to be in Latin. And there's little that is worse that an over-fusty pastiche, Wilkie Collins style.

I hope this is, in the end, a minor criticism. The book as a whole is so convincing, has so much truth and, to continue the (relevant) fabric metaphor, is so deftly woven together. It is a heartfelt book, a damning book, an exciting book and above all, a thoroughly enthralling book which simply demands to be finished.