Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem meets The Favourite in Kim Taylor Blakemore’s upcoming novel, The Companion. It begins, like Limehouse, with the announcement that our main character is doomed to death before we have even met her. Lucy Blunt awaits her hanging, convicted of murdering two as yet unknown parties. Of course, Lucy insists that she is innocent.

Lucy’s present narrative is spliced with a selection of events leading up to the double murder, beginning with a desperate knock on a kitchen door and the thrusting of forged references into the hands of the formidable “Cook.” With the help of her resourcefulness, and perhaps a little luck and opportunism, Lucy finds herself in the company of the mistress of the house, Eugenie Burton. Restricted by her blindness, Eugenie’s existence is one of isolation – the pain of which Lucy’s presence and attention seems to alleviate. I’m sure those who have seen The Favourite will know where this leads.

Eugenie and Lucy cannot, of course, be happy together. Two long shadows cast themselves over their bedchamber: Rebecca, cousin to Eugenie’s husband and former companion to Eugenie, lurks constantly and wears her jealousy like plumage, and the mystery of a drowned girl, Lucy’s predecessor in the staff kitchens, lingers still over the household. Lucy cannot trust Eugenie, Eugenie cannot trust Lucy, and the reader cannot trust anyone. There is an overwhelming feeling throughout the novel that every utterance, every sentence, could be a lie. By the end, I still do not know who the true guilty party is. I turned the last page with desperate questions still frozen on my lips.

The Companion burns slow, and gives away very little. I found myself taking far more care in my reading, as I usually do when I encounter what I know to be an unreliable narrator. Lucy Blunt takes care to reveal very little of herself during her account of the time she spent under the employ of the Burtons, but the combination of her abrupt, pragmatic narrative voice and the very, very occasional contradictory sentence is enough to instil an underlying distrust in the reader. Blakemore has done an excellent job of crafting a compelling liar – one who seems believable, but who you cannot help but question at every turn.

Each character, despite being somewhat caricatural, is alive with personality. I can see Cook’s stocky body as she blasts through the kitchens, Rebecca’s wildly distrusting eyes, Lucy’s bubbling fury. The familiarity of the novel’s devices is not detrimental at all. In fact, there is nothing I disliked about it. Despite Blakemore’s prose skating on the side of minimalism, there are moments of genuine beauty which got a hearty reread and a generous helping of highlighter. A sharp and brilliant work, one whose author I would certainly care to see more of.

In 1855, Lucy Blunt is waiting to find out if she is to be hanged, but did she kill the two people she is accused of killing?  Mix in a rural house, jealousy, forbidden love, perceived madness, secrets and you have an amazing recipe for a book.

Lucy becomes a maid in a successful Mill owners house and works her way up to becoming the companion to his blind wife, Mrs Burton.  But Mrs Burton already has a companion in her husband's cousin who likes control and takes advantage of Mrs Burton's blindness, acting more like her jail keeper.  Or are there good reasons she behaves this way?  

I highly recommend this book to others especially readers of The Confessions of Fanny Langton by Sara Collins and The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced electronic copy of this book.  All opinions are my own.

In the days before the Civil War,  a young woman in New Hampshire has been sentenced to death. Lucy Blunt has been accused of a double murder at Burton mansion, where she worked. Guilty or innocent, as Lucy fights to have her sentence overturned, she looks back at the events that led her to where she is, poised on the brink of death. There are shades of Lizzie Borden here, where a young woman is restricted and confined by the customs and expectations of her time. And what happens when that same woman finally reaches a breaking point. Masterfully written, this is a searing indictment on women’s rights