Overview
Named a Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year by The Sunday Times (UK) House of Splinters is the long-awaited prequel to bestselling and multi-award-winning author Laura Purcell's gothic horror classic, The Silent Companions. Not every house is a home ... Belinda Bainbridge has spent her life in the shadow of her anxious 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: born a merchant's daughter, she will now be lady of the manor. But their new home quickly proves far from ideal. The garden is a wilderness, the estate is struggling financially, there are whispers about the mysterious death of a servant many years before, while their young son, Freddy, seems unusually fixated on the strange wooden figures--so-called ""silent companions""--that were once owned by his ancestors. When Wilfred's charismatic brother, Nathan, arrives unexpectedly from abroad, bringing a very different account of the family's past, Belinda begins to question what her husband has told her. What really lies behind the sad history of the house? And are Belinda's children truly safe here?
Full Product Details
Author: Laura Purcell ,
Juanita McMahon
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Imprint: Blackstone Publishing
Edition: Unabridged edition
Dimensions:
Width: 13.70cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 21.30cm
Weight: 0.318kg
ISBN: 9798228647138
Pages: 346
Publication Date: 10 February 2026
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
""House of Splinters is everything you would expect from Laura Purcell's return to the world of The Silent Companions: spine-chilling and malevolent, with the eerie companions making up only a part of a mystery involving family grievances, inheritances, and resentful locals. A twisty, sinister read."" -- ""Rosie Andrews, Sunday Times bestselling author"" ""Laura Purcell's follow-up to The Silent Companions is everything I wanted it to be. Return to The Bridge, with its eerie wooden Companions and sinister happenings around the old house. It's exactly the right blend of dusty glamour and mystery, and cosy-shiver scary."" -- ""Natasha Pulley, author of The Mars House "" ""Laura's books are always an enormous treat, and this one is no exception. It is so beautifully vivid, claustrophobic, and macabre--and it balances the picturesque and the horrifying perfectly...A real pleasure."" -- ""Bridget Collins, Sunday Times bestselling author""
Author Information
Laura Purcell is an award-winning former bookseller living in Colchester, Essex, with her husband and pet guinea pigs. She is the author of novels including 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 novel The Whispering Muse was the 2023 winner of The Dracula Society's Children of the Night Award.
