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Shapechange: The vampire can assume the shape of an animal roughly the same size as their original mass. The vampire can only change into one type of animal (usually a wolf, sometimes a large feline or a giant snake), usually one associated with their clan or the type of prey they most commonly feed on. The animal, while usually a spectacular example of their species, shows no signs to a mundane observer of being supernatural.
The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell | Waterstones
Great characters I cared about, dark gothic rooms, seances, one woman who worked as a silhouette artist, a child with a secret.....and that ending! I am not going to say more because I do believe for this book to have the impact that the author intends, the less the reader knows the better. I can always rely on Laura Purcell to give me dark, twisty compelling reads to help me get through the bleak winter nights. I would highly recommend for people who enjoy reading gothic fiction.The plot is most engaging and intriguing, and the climax as unpredicatble as may be expected in a novel by Ms Purcell. I always love the way Ms Purcell gradually unravels her characters. I know there is something hidden and lifting the curtain inch by inch is a most thrilling reading experience.
The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell Book Review: The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell
When another of Agnes’s clients turns up dead, Agnes decides to pay Pearl a visit believing that a séance and being able to talk to the dead clients a legitimate way to solving this vexing, and fearful problem. Protean is the signature Discipline of the Gangrel, and many of its powers are geared towards surviving in the wild or evoking the strengths of natural predators. It is also used by the Ministry to take on the shape or characteristics of snakes, as they once did using Serpentis; as well as the Tzimisce, which in concert with Dominate is used to enable their terrible art of fleshcrafting known as Vicissitude.Pearl is known as “The White Sylph”, her albinism the prominent reason for the sobriquet. She is a spirit guide, and even though only eleven years of age, unlike all the charlatans and frauds many years older, Pearl’s powers are real. It is to Pearl that Mrs Boyle comes to speak to her murdered husband. The dead speak through Pearl, not to her, and after each séance Pearl is exhausted and none the wiser as to what the dead have revealed. All she knows is that Mr Boyle’s shade did not reveal his murderer. Purcell is fast establishing herself as the doyenne of gothic mystery, and this positively oozes uncanny menace … Niftily plotted and deftly researched, it's one to read with the lights blazing and the door bolted
The Shape of Darkness – Laura Purcell
Her sister, Constance, died in an accident fourteen years previously, and though Agnes has little reason to miss her, she is present in the protagonist’s thoughts for much of the novel. Another unseen character similarly takes up a lot of space in the novel: a Lieutenant Montague of the Royal Navy, who seems to have been involved with both sisters. Agnes’s family history is somewhat complex and the reader must piece together what has happened through hints and references to “The Accident”. For me, the fascination lay in exploring a character poised between two worlds, belonging to neither. Although the medium could be a “star” such as Florence Cook in the 1870s, her real purpose was to disappear from the room altogether. Rather than being wanted, she was a mere gateway that even the spirits suffered as an inconvenience. Nineteenth-century medium Elizabeth d’Esperance wrote in her memoir Shadow Land, “I feel very much like reminding [the ghost Anna] that she ought to be obliged to me, and take some notice of me sitting there, instead of sweeping past in so unceremonious a fashion.”I love gothic books. I love them so much for the eerie atmosphere, the Victorian settings, the image of a crumbling and dirty city. And I love the spiritualist vibes this one gave me.
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