I confess to not knowing what was real or imagined at many points throughout the tale, and I think this is the author’s intention. And the passages that take place in the “present” with Elsie in a mental hospital are heart wrenching and, at times, disturbing. My first impression of Elsie is that she is a snob, but readers soon learn about her tragic upbringing. Things progress in both timelines, coming to a quietly gut wrenching and chilling conclusion for Elsie. Alternately, the novel tells the story of Rupert’s seventeenth century ancestors who brought the silent companions into the home and sparked the village’s thinking that the estate housed a witch. Unexplained things begin to happen and the figures multiply, threatening all who live at the Bridge. They do grow close, however, after they discover a strange wooden figure, a Dutch silent companion, in the garret of the sprawling home.

Her only companion is Rupert’s cousin Sarah, who Elsie initially finds almost unbearably dull. It is unclear from the beginning what led to Rupert’s demise, and Elsie is met by disagreeable staff and untrusting locals. We meet Elsie as she arrives at her new husband’s ancestral estate for his funeral. The story actually alternates between two time periods at the family estate, The Bridge. The Silent Companions, with its Gothic crumbling estate, shadowy Victorian setting, and seriously creepy wooden figures, will entrance readers looking for a sinister read that will keep you reading with the lights on. The residents of The Bridge are terrified of the figure, but Elsie tries to shrug this off as simple superstition–that is, until she notices the figure’s eyes following her.Ī Victorian ghost story that evokes a most unsettling kind of fear, this is a tale that creeps its way through the consciousness in ways you least expect–much like the silent companions themselves. Inside her new home lies a locked door, beyond which is a painted wooden figure–a silent companion–that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself. But with her husband dead just weeks after their marriage, her new servants resentful, and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie has only her husband’s awkward cousin for company. When Elsie married handsome young heir Rupert Bainbridge, she believed she was destined for a life of luxury.

The silent companions