“Ignorant people always fancied that ghosts appeared as shrouded ghouls. Anyone who had suffered loss could tell them differently. Sounds and smells haunted with more persistence, dragged you backwards in a way nothing else could”
RATING: 5/5
BLURB: “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.
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 she soon discovers that her new home may be just as dangerous as her last…”
REVIEW: I have been a huge fan of Laura Purcell since reading her debut novel ‘The Silent Companions‘, which I ranked as my favourite book of 2018. When I received ‘Bone China’ for my birthday from a friend I was so excited, hence why it was one of my first reads of the lockdown – and why I read the whole thing within three hours.
‘Bone China’ is told from two perspectives, one in the present day and one in the past, a writing tactic that I always love as I feel it allows the reader to get a really rounded picture of both the setting and the characters. One perspective is that of Hester Why, whom I would class as the main protagonist of the two. Hester’s perspective takes place in the present day as she starts her employment as a lady’s maid at Morvoren, though she also tells us of her past as a maid to Lady Rose, an employment that ended in tragedy and scandal when Rose miscarried two babies – the second of which died due to Hester’s meddling. Hester not a likeable protagonist, and nor is she a reliable narrator – her alcoholism and reliance on gin and laundanum means that she often behaves irratically and is prone to outbursts of temper when she is running low on these vices. Despite this, she is the only character we really can rely on as she is the only one who does not allow her life to be dictated by the belief in mischevious and malignant fairies and pixies, like the rest of the staff – and indeed, the mistress – at Morvoren House do. Hester finds the superstitions that the staff have confusing and ridicules the measures they take to ward off the fairies, which include balls made of pages from the bible and a small china doll carried around by Miss Rosewyn, that is meant to confuse the fairies into stealing the doll rather than the woman. Reading from a modern perspectives we also find these superstitions ridiculous, and therefore rely on Hester as the only character who’s sceptism is similar to our own.
As events taking place at Morvoren house become more difficult to explain, we are treated to a narration of the events of the past that have led up this point, from the perspective of Hester’s mistress, Louise Pinecroft. Louise is a far more likeable narrator and it is heartbreaking to read her story of the loss of her family to consumption and the subsequent decline of her father’s mental health as her desperately tries to find a cure. I found the inclusion of Louise’s dog, Pompey and the blossoming relationship between herself and the patient/convict Harry, to be the only wholesome and warming parts of these sections of the novel, as it is in these parts that the malicious and terrifying truth about the fairies that plague Morvoren become apparent. I felt almost as if I were going insane myself reading it, as the writing in these chapters is so intense and supernatural.
Despite the fact that they are telling very different stories from vastly varying perspectives, I did find Hester and Louise to be similar as characters in some respects. They both act as the voice of reason and rationalism in the sections of the book that they each narrate. They are also both intelligent women with medical backgrounds and impressive medical knowledge for the time period; these skills are something they are eager to display as they both have a need to be needed. They also both strongly seek approval and love from those above them; Hester from her previous mistress, Lady Rose, and Louise from her doctor father, Ernest. The fact that both women are then flung together in a time of supernatural crisis at Morvoren house seems like part of the design of the fairies, and the fact that it is Hester who ends up ‘saving the day’ is something I certainly could not have predicted.
The novel overall is incredibly immersive, allowing the reader to begin to believe in the fantasy world that plagues the characters as we ourselves read all the more frantically in order to understand what is going on. I absolutely loved it and grew fond of both protagonists despite their failings. I absolutely cannot wait for Purcell’s next novel.
Coffee, Books and Paris 