In Bone China both physical and mental illnesses abound, and whilst modern medicine still has a lot to learn about, especially when it comes to the mind, emotions and psyche, Victorian remedies and beliefs continue to shock me into being grateful I live in the modern era.
Anyone who has read her other novels or our reviews of them knows that ailments play a pivotal role in a Purcell novel. Purcell has comfortably established her writing in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and her research is once again excellent, which is reflected in both the level of detail she includes on garments, modes of transport, societal structure and interactions, and ailments. Thus, on a solid diet of opiates and folklore, Hester watches another mistress’s health decline, until the fateful night of a strong storm where things finally fall into place, and she makes an impulsive decision which rids her of her addiction and guilt. It is hard to escape her own guilty conscience, and the sometimes extreme beliefs of the other staff members push her to sip more than occasionally of whatever drink she has at hand. Throughout her new position as a nurse to an eldering Miss Pinecroft, Hester hides her alcohol addiction and when she runs out of gin, substitutes with laundum – half opium, half alcohol. A small secret of Hester’s is out – her mercy of giving the victim some of the gin she keeps in her bag marks her as someone with vices as strong as her virtues. Hester is stuck on a coach, hands shaking, and not just from the cold, before spurring into motion when a fellow passenger falls from the top row of the overcrowded coach with more than a broken leg. From who we find out soon enough, but as to finding out why we are made to wait for a fair few pages (I did appreciate the question in the heroine’s surname greatly). The story begins with the main character, Hester Why, on the run. Whilst it took me some time for me to get into The Silent Companions, and The Corset had its ups and downs for me, Bone China got me on the side of the main heroine in an instant. It is difficult to write about one of Purcell’s fiction books, without comparing it to the previous ones, as they are all under the same genre, yet the particulars of both plot and main characters differ greatly, thus providing a gripping read. There are many similarities between the novels – the main characters are all women, usually of some fortune further, the books are set in the same era, there is a mystery to be uncovered and have a good dose of the inexplicable and the supernatural thrown into the mix. For a third year in a row, we have trusted ourselves to read and review a Laura Purcell novel, this year it is Bone China.
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