If there’s one TV show that captures the tone, atmosphere, and grandeur of high-class living in pre-modern Britain, it’s Downton Abbey. There is an underlying sense of foreboding throughout this whole story that had me questioning whether the events that were happening were supernatural, menacing or manipulation.

When a French diplomat visits on a mission, he is deeply taken by Korean culture and is spellbound by Yi Jin, quickly falling for her and asking both her and the emperor for permission to take her with him to Paris. When newly widowed Elsie Bainbridge is sent to the family’s country estate to escape scandal in London, she discovers in the garret the silent companions of the title, wooden boards depicting lifelike images of the house’s past residents. Elsie moves into his crumbling estate, with its odd servants and creaky floors, and soon starts to notice that something isn’t quite right. It's beyond atmospheric, so well written it seeps deep into you, affecting the way you think and feel. It is very well written and I especially enjoyed the setting of the crumbling mansion (named The Bridge) in England.It begins with Elsie in an asylum, with a creepy attendant and a young doctor who exclaims, “I am here to decide your fate. Hetta is strangely drawn to the group of silent companions brought into the house by Anne, and a series of gruesome events soon follows. The story is told from three POVs, Elsie as she is currently, in an asylum and disfigured by fire, Elsie at The Bridge in 1865 and Anne at The Bridge in 1635. With our team of dedicated reviewers we provide readers with insightful critiques that not only delve into the narrative but also its cultural significance. After a series of disastrous events culminate in the theft of Jay’s precious BMW, complete with his stash and the money he owes to his lethally impatient supplier, the security services swoop, offering protection if he will infiltrate a group of extremists.

Though much of it feels like a blur now, I remember the great day I spent with Juliet meeting the publishers who wanted to offer on the novel, being plied with cake and various Silent Companions-themed goodies.One of the biggest narrative successes of Downton Abbey was the character of Carson the butler and his relationship to his own position and the other members of the house.

Sawdust constantly covers the floor, no matter how much the maids sweep, and each night Elsie hears the low, scraping sounds of their inanimate wooden feet moving across the floor. The titular Madame Bovary, Emma, newly married to a gentleman doctor in the provincial French countryside, is heartbroken to find that this life of high-class luxury isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as boredom quickly sets in.The ending was clever and with hindsight it was obvious that there had been a million clues I had overlooked! This story involves an old haunted mansion, a woman living in an insane asylum, ghosts, an old hidden diary and three intertwining timelines. This explains the presence of doppelgängers in some of the historic houses we care for, including an identical set of children at Hinton Ampner in Hampshire and Chirk Castle in Wrexham. I also think having three timelines happening in a single novel was a mistake without any specific timeline that shined due to having so many different characters and events. A crumbling haunted mansion, "silent companions" — painted wooden figures with features so realistic they could be human — whose eyes track Elsie when her back is turned.