Лучшие книги Лоры Перселл

Когда Элси выходила замуж за аристократа Руперта Бейнбриджа, она верила, что впереди у нее прекрасная беззаботная жизнь. Но судьба распоряжается по-своему. Вскоре после свадьбы Элси теряет мужа и отправляется в заброшенное поместье в английской глубинке, чтобы горевать подальше от людских глаз. Однако и там она не находит утешения: слуги настроены враждебно, кузина мужа ведет себя странно, а главное, всё в старинном доме пропитано страхом...

Шитье — трудно вообразить более мирное и безобидное занятие. Однако шестнадцатилетняя швея Рут Баттэрхэм убеждена, что ее стежки обладают таинственной, даже смертоносной силой. Рут обвиняют в убийстве хозяйки, и девушка не отрицает свою вину.

Аристократка Доротея Трулав потрясена и заинтригована рассказами Рут, которую посещает в тюрьме, хотя ей сложно в них поверить. Доротея пытается определить характер малолетней преступницы с помощью френологии — науки о строении черепа — но в данном случае наука оказывается бессильна. С течением времени Доротея начинает терзаться сомнениями: неужели у них с Рут есть нечто общее? Да и можно ли верить Рут? Кто она — сумасшедшая, патологическая лгунья? Жертва или злодей?

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…

At The Mercury Theatre in London's West End, rumours are circulating of a curse.

It is said that the lead actress Lilith has made a pact with Melpomene, the tragic muse of Greek mythology, to become the greatest actress to ever grace the stage. Suspicious of Lilith, the jealous wife of the theatre owner sends dresser Jenny to spy on her, and desperate for the money to help her family, Jenny agrees.

What Jenny finds is a woman as astonishing in her performance as she is provocative in nature. On stage, it's as though Lilith is possessed by the characters she plays, yet off stage she is as tragic as the Muse who inspires her, and Jenny, sorry for her, befriends the troubled actress. But when strange events begin to take place around the theatre, Jenny wonders if the rumours are true, and fears that when the Muse comes calling for payment, the cost will be too high.

A 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 the queen of Gothic fiction, Laura Purcell

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.

A new gothic Victorian tale from Laura Purcell, set on the atmospheric Cornish coast in a rambling house by the sea in which a maid cares for a mute old woman with a mysterious past, alongside her superstitious staff.

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 disease in the caves beneath his new Cornish home. While he devotes himself to his controversial medical trials, Louise finds herself increasingly discomfited by the strange tales her new maid tells of the fairies that hunt the land, searching for those they can steal away to their realm.

Forty years later, Hester arrives at Morvoren House to take up a position as nurse to the now partially paralyzed and mute Miss Pinecroft. Hester has fled to Cornwall to try to escape her past, but surrounded by superstitious staff enacting bizarre rituals, she soon discovers her new home may be just as dangerous as her last.