The prose is gorgeously eloquent and yet darkly vivid at the same time. The first thing that struck me about The Shape of Darkness is how perfectly evocative the setting is and how Purcell places us in the Victorian era in such an elegant and effective manner.

She enlists the help of a child spirit medium named Pearl to make a connection to the dead and somehow solve the killings. The story takes place in Victorian Bath (incidentally one of my favourite cities here in the UK) and follows Agnes Darken, a silhouette artist whose clients are being murdered in mysterious ways. I love a good gothic ghost story, especially from a writer as brilliant as Laura Purcell so I was extremely excited to read The Shape of Darkness and I’m pleased to say it was just as eerie and beautifully written as I expected. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back… Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another…ĭesperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them.

Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Wicked deeds require the cover of darkness…Ī struggling silhouette artist in Victorian Bath seeks out a renowned child spirit medium in order to speak to the dead – and to try and identify their killers – in this beguiling new tale from Laura Purcell.

Laura purcell the shape of darkness