#BlogTour The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell

 

Today its an absolute pleasure to take part in the BlogTour The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell.

About the Author

Laura Purcell is a former bookseller and lives in Colchester with her husband and pet guinea pigs. Her first novel for Raven Books, The Silent Companions, was a Radio 2 and Zoe Ball ITV Book Club pick and was the winner of the WHSmith Thumping Good Read Award, while her subsequent books – The Corset and Bone China – established Laura as the queen of the sophisticated, and spooky, page-turner.

Follow @spookypurcell on Twitter, on Amazon, on Goodreads, Visit laurapurcell.com, Buy The Shape of Darkness

About the book

As the age of the photograph dawns in Victorian Bath, silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. 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... Why is the killer seemingly  targeting her business?

Desperately 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.

But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back...

Review

Agnes keeps herself and her family afloat with her silhouette art. When one of her clients is murdered shortly after visiting her she thinks nothing of it other than the fact her work will go unpaid, but that is just the beginning. Then another client is killed.

Supported by her good friend Simon, who always seems to be there to keep her safe, she tries to take care of her nephew and mother, whilst removing the memories and reminders of her difficult sister. Drawn into the story are two sisters making money from the desperation of those who are grieving. One of those people is Agnes, she is eager to connect to those behind the veil. She wants the chance to speak to her lost love. The medium of choice is a young girl with a gift, however it all comes at a price. 

I really enjoyed the way the author combines an almost gothic ghostly vibe with a murder mystery, and this constant balancing act between reality and a dark world beyond life as we know it. The aspect of communication with the otherworldly throws up some interesting questions - is there something akin to the power to communicate with the dead, is it all just the hallucinatory ramblings of a woman in denial or is Agnes merely the pawn in a chess game.

It's a riveting read that keeps the reader engrossed until the end, which is what I've come to expect from this particular author.

Buy The Shape of Darkness at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Raven Books pub date 21 January 2021 | Hardback £12.99 | eBook £9.09 | Audio £21. Buy at Amazon com. Hive. Bookshop org. Waterstones.

The Anarchists' Club by Alex Reeve

This is the second book in the Leo Stanhope series, and if you haven't read the first one yet, The House on Half Moon Street, then please do, because you are missing out on a great book.

Leo gets called to identify the body of a woman who has been buried in the midst of a burrow of rooms and hallways that harbour a group of anarchists. His first instinct is to lie and his second one is to worry about who wasn't found with the corpse.

Leo and Rosie end up as a sleuthing duo again in this story, although their relationship is quite rocky. Leo finds it difficult to forgive Rosie for what happened to Leo in that room. They need to have clarification on why Leo feels so betrayed. Not that it was her fault that they ended up there, but perhaps it has more to do with seeing his vulnerable side and being a witness to the worst thing that could possibly happen to Leo or Rosie. She has seen his shame, but then wasn't she the one who opened that door?

The premise is absolutely refreshing. Reeve wants the reader to understand the limitations for transgender people in this particular era, which can't really be compared to those in the 21st century. Although, to be completely fair there are still plenty of countries with laws comparable to those in the dark ages.

It's historical crime fiction with a compelling main character. Reeve has a natural flair for crime and for telling a story. This isn't a writer who has decided to throw in a transgender character to shake a genre up or be in vogue. He has created a main character with longevity and potential, and it certainly wouldn't work if he wasn't such a talented scribe. Luckily he is, which hopefully means we will be hearing a lot more from Reeve in the future.

Buy The Anarchists' Club (Leo Stanhope 2) at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Raven Books; pub date 2 May 2019. Buy at Amazon com.

Read my review of Half Moon Street by Alex Reeve.

Follow Alex Reeves @storyjoy or @BloomsburyRaven onTwitter

The House on Half Moon Street by Alex Reeve

I really enjoyed this intriguing crime mystery, perhaps because the main character is trying to live their best life, despite the many obstacles in their way.

Charlotte takes the brave step into independence and severs the ties between herself and her family in an attempt to live how she wants and love whom she wants. That life is being Leo, because for all intent and purposes he is a man waiting to walk free from the physical constraints of his female body. Free to love. Free to partake in the pleasures of a physical and sexual relationship. And this is where the story becomes a tale of crime, murder, unrequited passion and jealousy.

What Reeve captures really well is the inequality of gender in that particular time period, although to be fair some things haven't changed much. He describes the privilege Leo enjoys as a man and then the oppression Charlotte has to endure in equal measures as a woman.

Although in our day and age it is considered more politically correct to assign the correct personal pronoun to Leo, I believe to do the story justice one has to speak of both Charlotte as a woman and Leo as the man Charlotte lives as and is on the inside. It's important to acknowledge the difficulty, struggle and opposition Charlotte experiences because of her brave choice to live as the man she knows herself to be on the inside. The other side of the coin is the constant fear Leo lives with, because he fears he will be discovered. It would mean prison.

I'm a little disappointed this has been put under the genre of erotic transgender fiction on at least one major retailer. First of all any eroticism is only hinted at and secondly it means a lot of potential readers may not even consider reading this really well-written historical crime fiction story. It's a cracking read.

I sincerely hope this is the first of many Leo Stanhope books and I'm looking forward to the second in the series, The Anarchist's Club, in May.

Buy The House on Half Moon Street (Leo Stanhope #1) at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Raven Books; pub date Dec. 2018

Preorder/Buy The Anarchist's Club (Leo Stanhope #2) at Amazon Uk (pub date 2 May 2019)

Read my review of The Anarchists' Club by Alex Reeve.

Follow Alex Reeves @storyjoy or @BloomsburyRaven onTwitter