The book alternates between three different timelines, curiously in the reverse order to what you might expect based on the blurb, opening with the woman who now calls herself Hester arriving at Morvoren House. The events forty years earlier involving Louise Pinecroft’s efforts to help her father in his experimental treatment of patients with tuberculosis don’t appear until later in the book. This part is fascinating as it illuminates the lack of knowledge about the causes of the disease at the time (probably late 18th Century) but it is also rather distressing to witness the “treatments” Dr. Pinecroft inflicts on his patients in an increasingly crazed desire to succeed in finding a cure.

I was particularly drawn to Hester’s story as we find out more about the reasons for her sudden departure from her previous employment as maid to Lady Rose. I thought the author did a great job of making us feel sympathy for her whilst at the same time introducing a sense of unease as we learn what has occurred in previous positions she’s occupied. Her desperation to be valued by Lady Rose and her disappointment when she realises the difference in their social position can never bring about the sort of relationship she desires is painful to witness. At the same time, she commits an act that has dire consequences and I liked that the author challenged the reader’s view of Hester in this respect. The later parts of Hester’s story and, in particular, the final scene, I found less credible.

The ailing Miss Pinecroft that Hester encounters is very different to the Louise Pinecroft of forty years before and I wasn’t totally convinced by her transformation from down-to-earth capable young woman to a Miss Havisham type figure sat in a gloomy room full of china.

The book certainly has many of the ingredients you look for in a Gothic novel: a chilly brooding house in a remote location, unexplained noises and locked doors that don’t seem to keep things out. In fact, Hester’s first impression of Morvoren House is as something ‘not just bricks and pebbles but a living thing’. And Creeda, employed as nursemaid to Miss Pinecroft’s ward, with her strange ways, belief in fairies, changelings and the need for protective talismans, makes for an unsettlingly creepy character. (With her black gown and habit of suddenly appearing, she’s a bit Mrs Danvers from Rebecca, a bit Grace Poole from Jane Eyre.) But are the strange goings-on the result of malicious human agency, the product of a disturbed imagination or an actual supernatural presence? It’s up to the reader to decide. For me it all got a little bit bonkers towards the end but if you’re looking for a dramatic climax to a book then you won’t be disappointed.

Dark, creepy- plenty of atmosphere. Laura delivers on all fronts - from the characters, plot and the atmosphere.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for gifting this book.

Bone China is a dark and ominous book, and I loved it.

It's a book about superstition, about folk beliefs in the small folk, the fairies and the pixies. This is something I've always found fascinating and I loved how it was dealt with here. The conflict between scientific progress and understanding and the lingering folk beliefs was well handled, and the power these beliefs can hold over someone brought up in them was creepy as anything! There was also that delicious uncertainty, where maybe there was something out there but it's not depended upon as an explanation.

It's a book about madness, and this was such a powerful element of the story. Seeing characters descend into madness was hard, and the effects it can have on any body were really well realised. This combined with the superstitious beliefs in a really effective way, showing the different pressures that can really stop us thinking straight and the devastating effects it can have.

It's a book about possessiveness and control. In many ways, this was the most subtle theme of the novel. Hester Why felt this about her former mistress, doing whatever she could to keep their relationship special, different, to keep her mistress to herself. It's echoed later in Morvoren House, where Rosewhyn is kept controlled, and there's a definite hierarchy about which servants serve which family members. It's not as openly expressed as the other elements, but so much of the strife in the novel is driven by this theme.

It's a book about how we cope with trauma, whether turning to drink or retreating into our own minds, or fighting to cure an incurable disease to prove something to the world. This is a key driver for the book, the overcoming of past mistakes, regrets and trauma.

I loved the way the story was told too.; There's the "current" narrative, a historic tale set in Regency times of a woman running away from something to a remote house on the Cornish coast. But as the novel goes on the narrative switches to past events, first Hester's past experiences in London, showing exactly what she's running away from and why, and later events from Moroven House from forty years earlier, showing us why it is such a cold, bleak and haunted place. With Hester's time in Moroven House interspersed with these flashbacks, we get a slow unveiling of past horrors shedding an eerie light on present events.

Bone China is a chilling novel of superstition, madness and possessiveness, told with skill and perfect Gothic style.

I was hoping for more of the atmospheric, creepy atmosphere I experienced through her work The Silent Companions, and The Bone China did not disappoint! Set in Cornwall, this gothic tale crosses between past and future, combining folklore and medicine in the telling. It was a perfect wintry read and I look forward to more of her books!

This book is very atmospheric and quite creepy. However, unfortunately I failed to really connect with either the characters or the story.

Bone China is an atmospheric gothic tale set in the isolated Moroven House on the Cornish coast.

Hester has left London, changed her name and arrives in Cornwall to nurse the disabled Louise.

Louise just lays in her room staring at a China collection and the feeling of strangeness really begins to ramp up.

The other members of the household are a bit strange to Hester too with their folk tales and rituals to keep the fairies away! But how much of this is real or the imaginings of Hester and her love of gin and opium?

The tales of Louise, her father and the experiments in the caves is disturbing to say the least….

This is a beautifully written nightmare of a tale, dark, creepy and utterly compelling. If you like your historical fiction on the dark side you will love Bone China. Goosebumpingly brilliant.

This was a great creepy gothic thriller set in Cornwall. Told in the present about a woman hiding secrets, working as a maid and in the past about another woman also hiding secrets that explain chilling incidents in the present.

I read this in the summer and it was creepy enough but I wish I'd saved it to read on Halloween!

Remembering how much I enjoyed "The Corset", I was excited to settle in with "Bone China". There was no disappointment. Purcell has a writing style that takes you away from the present day. Everything around you drifts away and you're completely in the story world. (Add a nature album of storms and the mood is completely set.)
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Laura Purcell has made it to my "buy on sight" list.
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From the blurb;
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Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft's family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken. But Dr Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the same disease in the cliffs beneath his new Cornish home.
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Forty years later, Hester Why arrives at Morvoren House to take up a position as nurse to the now partially paralysed and almost entirely mute Miss Pinecroft. Hester has fled to Cornwall to try and escape her past, but surrounded by superstitious staff enacting bizarre rituals, she soon discovers that her new home may be just as dangerous as her last.

I discovered Laura Purcell via The Silent Companions, an atmospheric Victorian Gothic which I enjoyed and as I rated her second Gothic novel, The Corset, even higher it meant I immediately put her on my auto author list and was looking forward to Bone China with much enthusiasm.

For me, Purcell's strengths lay primarily in her writing style, which manages to be descriptive and lyrical without veering into the dreaded purple prose. So far, all her stories fall into the 'maybe magic, maybe mundane' territory but as I'm a complete sucker for those that's also a plus in my book.

Sadly, there were a few things which didn't work for me and this came down to the plot and pacing.

The pacing was slow because the plot had been split into two narrations.

With one we follow Hester as she goes on the run to Cornwall and settles into Louise's house as her nurse. In the second we go back 40 years to when Louise was young and first settled in Cornwall with her physician father, a man so desperate to be renowned for curing TB that he would resort to any method necessary.

There was no linking between the two points of view between Hester and Louise and so we're suddenly thrown into Louise's history when we're just getting into Hester's present.

This random inclusion at the mid-point may not have thrown the pace completely off if we hadn't also then been introduced to Louise's father's point of view (via diary entries). This was one too many (or two too many) narrative points of view and it was an abrupt introduction of new POV's and tenses which pulled me from the story we were originally following.

In terms of characters the majority are filler. The ones who make an impact don't offer much - the father is one note character (driven by his desperation to cure TB), Louise as an old woman is passive and mute and as a young lady too bland to make any impact.

However, we do get Hester in all her unpleasantness.

Luckily I don't care about likable - I want my characters to be interesting. Hester is a destructive, tantrum filled woman with addiction problems and a possible case of Manchausen's by Proxy and she was the saving grace of the story perhaps because she is so detestable. It makes a change for the main character to be one of the villains of her own story.

It sounds like I'm picking on this story as one I didn't like but actually did like it. I happen to be a critical reviewer. The things I enjoy are still present in Bone China but I wonder if my cantankerous review is because I've realised you can have too much of a good thing.

Bone China seemed to follow a 'blueprint' that the author is now adhering too and while these components work for me, we're looking at the third book in a row which contains them so the stories are beginning to feel slightly predictable.

So far we have:-

*Question over whether the events are supernatural in origin or have a logical explanation (magic vs. Mundane)
*Victorian Gothic style
*Female narrator
*A secondary viewpoint (also female) making it a two person narrative
*Creepy setting
*An object of focus of the story
*Someone being abused or having been abused physically or sexually
*A domineering, emotionally abusive (at the very least) female is present to varying extents
*One or more parent of one or more of the main characters dead or dying
*Ambiguous relationship (possibly romantic) between one female character and another
*An ending which is also ambiguous but manages to be a downer?

With the above I could be describing Bone China, The Silent Companions or The Corset.

Don't get me wrong, all are well written and enjoyed by me and I know that authors have their themes or 'author fingerprint' but I enjoyed Bone China significantly less because it was beginning to read the same as her previous work.

I'll definitely read the one she has out in 2021 but I'm beginning to feel the need for a break to the formula otherwise the next one may be the last.

A troubled woman whose inner demons battle with the cruel reality of the world tries to flee from her conscience to Moroven House, a spooky and unsettling place to choose, but finds herself in a situation where her sanity is tested. We are also introduced to the story of the arrival of another woman at Mororven House, hundreds of years earlier and her father’s attempts to restore his professional reputation by effecting a cure for consumption. Both tales run parallel with increasing dread and eeriness - pure gothic.

I've loved Laura Purcell's previous works so I was highly anticipating Bone China and although this was my least favourite so far, it was by no means a bad book! It had all the creepy vibes that I've come to expect from Laura Purcell, it was just a lack of connection to the characters which made this bottom of the rankings in my experience and opinion. I found our main character to be slightly unbearable and naive, which for me, did hinder my enjoyment but I did still like the plot and would recommend it.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
I have read this author’s work before and I love the way she writes. This novel is masterfully written - gothic and mysterious and chilling, Hester and Louise’s stories and revealed in bits-size pieces. At the beginning I didn’t like them and by the end I loved them.
Everyone in this story is a little bit mad in a wonderful way and the supernatural elements reveal them to be achingly human, I loved this book!

I loved the start of this book but somehow I got a bit bogged down in the middle. It then picked up at the end but the conclusion was a bit sudden and random. So, a bit mixed with this one. Some wonderful period detail, loved the dark nature of the characters including the reliance on alcohol , the spooky woman-child, the bone-china, the mysterious pasts of all of them. Just found it a tad too long, too convoluted.

I enjoyed Bone China it was historical fiction with a touch of supernatural. It told the story of Hester a lady's maid who became just a tad obsessive about her mistress. She left employment after some trouble and got a job in Cornwall as a nurse to Louise, an elderly lady. The house of her new employer had lots of strange goings on and you then found out the history of Louise (the elderly lady). One thing I did not know is that to make Bone China in olden days they crush the bones of animals to add to the mix. Something that makes the tale all the more spooky. One I recommend if you like books that make you draw the curtains before you start reading.

A delightfully creepy mystery that kept me guessing to the end. Highly atmospheric and unsettling. The setting was perfect and the characters played their roles beautifully.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

Bone China is the first book by Laura Purcell I've read. I know that her former books have been popular so when this book became available for review I jumped at the chance. I love, love, love gothic literature. My adoration of the genre is partly why I am studying literature at university. So I really thought this book was going to be amazing. Alas, it fell rather short of my expectations.

It was clear very early on that Laura Purcell is a gifted writer. Her prose is interesting and easy to digest. This book was gothic in a very basic sense but it lacked the uncomfortableness the genre is known for. This book didn't scare me nor give me the creeps. I have seen 'Bone China' described as a horror which is rather far from accurate. There are a couple of moments of unease but I found this book to be lacking in atmosphere. I feel like there was an emphasis on 'letting the reader decide' are these people mad or is there something spooky going on here? I wish it had been a little bolder. As the book came to its end I found it gave no real answers and felt almost unfinished.

I cannot say I liked or enjoyed Bone China. It was perfectly readable but failed to excite me in any way. That being said there is enough talent in the writing for me to pick up another one of Laura Purcell's books.

This is another spooky tale from Laura Purcell that is based on the mythology of Cornwall.
Hester Why flees to Cornwall to take up the position of nurse to the ailing Miss Pinecroft and quickly witnesses very strange behaviour within the household. Forty years before, Louise and her father moved to the house in the hope of finding an effective treatment for Consumption, which tragically took three members of their family. When things come to a head, Hester manages to save an innocent person by repenting for her previous sins.
This is an incredibly atmospheric story, steeped in superstition and so well written that you will start to believe fairies are real.

Always a brilliant read, Laura Purcell writes gothic horror thrillers like no one else. They are exciting and dark

First of all I have to say I absolutely loved Silent Companions (if you haven't read that, do it now!) This however I was not so keen on. Now this may have been because I read it at the start of lockdown, and the story is based around people dying of consumption.

Chilling and atmospheric -yes.! Victoian gothic thriller - yes! For me the story just didnt flow, and I couldn't connect with any of the characters.

I haven't given up with this author and will definitely look out for her next book.

Thank you Netgalley for advancing me a pre-publication copy of this book.
Reading "Bone China" is a strange experience. Reminiscent of "Thr Girl with thr Pearl Earring" or "Tulip Fever", Purcell draws us into a world where medical science is in its infancy and superstition dominates the life of the poor. Potions, herbs and pottery thread their way through the tale.
The narrator is a lady's maid whose specialism is treating her mistresses' various ailments. Her previous positions have not been a success. She is a disturbed woman, obsessive and secretive and thus unreliable, an interesting device.
Escaping London after a peculiar attempt to abort her mistress' child, she finds herself in a house near the sea, inhabited by people obsessed with the "fairies" who apparently seek a young woman. Her new mistress is disabled after a stroke and obsessed by a room full of blue china.
We go back in history to find out who these characters are and the implications for the "now" of the story.
Purcell tells us less rather than more and sometimes the dots of the narrative refuse to join. Perhaps this is our unreliable narrator, drawn into the strange events despite her belief in medicine. Her life parallels that of her crippled mistress, also a believer in medicine.
Moody, dark, strange...the book is all these things. And knowing that china was created using real bone as well as clay, casts a new light on the title.
The ending is sudden and perhaps inconsistent with the narrative but as the story is still swirling in my head it may be that Pucell's trail of breadcrumbs will take me to a new understanding. I will let it swirl for a whole more.