Reading: THE SILENT COMPANIONS - Laura Purcell

It's Victorian England, 1865, and after a rough childhood dealing with the death of her father and her mother's descent into madness, Elsie has finally found happiness and secured her and her brother's futures by marrying the handsome, rich Rupert Bainbridge, who soon after their marriage leaves to set up their estate in the country, The Bridge, for the arrival of his new (and newly-pregnant) bride. Tragedy strikes just weeks after the wedding, however, when Rupert suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances soon after arriving at The Bridge, and a grieving, despondent Elsie soon arrives there herself, discovering quite quickly that the servants have taken an instant dislike to her and the local villagers both hate and fear The Bridge in equal measure. Taking up residence in the decaying old mansion with only Rupert's blander-than-bland spinster cousin for company, from the first night Elsie hears bizarre scratchings coming from somewhere in the house above her, and upon investigating discovers a strange, large piece of wood painted and cut into the very realistic-looking life-size figure of a young girl - a young girl who, oddly. resembles Elsie. This "silent companion" ends up an adornment placed in the downstairs window by the entrance to the house, but as time goes on Elsie comes to find strange things happening; the figure shifts or moves slightly throughout the day, with no one in the house admitting they touched it, or the eyes on the figure don't seem to be in the position Elsie remembered them being in originally. When more silent companions begin popping up around the house, some of the figures taking on a downright sinister appearance, it becomes clear to Elsie that her and her baby are at risk, and what goes bump in the night might actually be wood scraping across the floor, coming for her. The Silent Companions switches from 1865 and 1635 and back again throughout, the earlier segments giving a creepy backstory leading up to what's going on in Elsie's time - the book itself opening at an asylum soon after whatever happens at The Bridge happened, where we learn a present-day, horribly-scarred Elsie, with no memories of what happened, may either be put away or stand trial for murder. For some time I had been looking for a book that would weird me out, and The Silent Companions - though a slow burn at first - soon enough had a line of creepiness crawling up my spine like a caterpillar, every shadow out of the corner of my eye one I'd check to make sure wasn't a life-sized wooden cut-out of a figure with hate-filled eyes. Spooky, well-written, and worth the slightly anti-climactic ending for all that comes before, The Silent Companions will indeed get under your skin a bit ... and try to make a home there.  4/5 stars