House of Splinters: the spine-tingling return to the world of The Silent Companions from the Queen of the Ghost Story
Oct 2025 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
384
Pages
infoThis book will become available on October 9, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
The Queen of the ghost story returns. Not every house is a home...
Belinda Bainbridge has spent her life in the shadow of her controlling mother, so when her father-in-law dies at The Bridge, his remote ancestral seat, she is secretly thrilled. His death means she, her husband Wilfred and their children can relocate and finally begin to create their own happy home together. Their new home is not without challenges: the garden is a wilderness, the estate is struggling financially, there are whispers about the mysterious death of a servant many years before.. When Wilfred's charismatic brother, Nathan, arrives from abroad, he brings much needed excitement and energy. But he also brings rumours of a curse on the house.
Belinda has questions. What happened to Nathan and Wilfred's sister in childhood? What led to the sudden death of her father in law? Are her children safe?
And what part do the strange wooden figures around the household have to play in the events?
The outstanding new haunted house story from the Queen of the Gothic, Laura Purcell. Loved by readers, The Silent Companions was the winner of the W H Smith Thumping Good Read Award and picked for both the Radio 2 Book Club and the Zoe Ball ITV Book Clubs. House of Splinters revisits her iconic setting of The Bridge for a fresh new tale to chill new readers and existing fans to their very depths.
Belinda Bainbridge has spent her life in the shadow of her controlling mother, so when her father-in-law dies at The Bridge, his remote ancestral seat, she is secretly thrilled. His death means she, her husband Wilfred and their children can relocate and finally begin to create their own happy home together. Their new home is not without challenges: the garden is a wilderness, the estate is struggling financially, there are whispers about the mysterious death of a servant many years before.. When Wilfred's charismatic brother, Nathan, arrives from abroad, he brings much needed excitement and energy. But he also brings rumours of a curse on the house.
Belinda has questions. What happened to Nathan and Wilfred's sister in childhood? What led to the sudden death of her father in law? Are her children safe?
And what part do the strange wooden figures around the household have to play in the events?
The outstanding new haunted house story from the Queen of the Gothic, Laura Purcell. Loved by readers, The Silent Companions was the winner of the W H Smith Thumping Good Read Award and picked for both the Radio 2 Book Club and the Zoe Ball ITV Book Clubs. House of Splinters revisits her iconic setting of The Bridge for a fresh new tale to chill new readers and existing fans to their very depths.
About the author
Laura Purcell is an award-winning former bookseller living in Colchester, Essex with her husband and pet guinea pigs. She is the author of five previous novels for Raven Books, among them The Silent Companions, which was a Radio 2 and Zoe Ball ITV Book Club pick, and The Shape of Darkness, winner of the inaugural Fingerprint Award for Historical Crime Book of the Year. Her short stories have been included in The Haunting Season and The Winter Spirits anthologies, which were both instant Sunday Times bestsellers. She also wrote 'Roanoake Falls', a dramatic podcast for Realm, working with John Carpenter and Sandy King Carpenter. Her latest novel The Whispering Muse was the 2023 winner of The Dracula Society's Children of the Night Award.
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