The Poison Thread

The Poison Thread

By: Laura Purcell

Synopsis

Ruth Butterham lived a rough life from a young age. She was tormented in school because she wasn’t as well off as the other girls. She found her place beside her mother embroidering and sewing, as soon as Ruth’s mother turns up pregnant and the family barely getting by as it was Ruth’s recreational assistance turns into a full-time job at 14. The baby dies after Ruth embroiders on her blanket the family falls apart, her father committing suicide and forcing her mother to “sell” Ruth into service of the dressmaker they were contracting with. As time progresses Ruth learns of deaths and misfortunes of others who she sewed for including her mother her suspicion grows that her sewing is cursed. When her mistress dies, she cannot help but believe it to be her own fault. Dorothea is a 25-year-old aristocrat who is secretly a phrenologist who lost her mother and lives with a father whose main goal is to get her married. While Dorothea’s is to be a good charitable person by Catholic standards. She spends her time at the Oakgate prison where she meets Ruth and is enraptured by the idea that a 16-year-old can have the skull of a killer and if it can change. “If we can detect vice in a timely manner and point the child down another path, the shape of the head, as well as the texture of the spirit may change.” The book is written in alternating perspectives from both girls, Ruth recounting her life to Dorothea and Dorothea muddling through it and her own life.

Characteristics of Horror

·         Has moments of gore described in detail

·         Unresolved Ending

·         Erratic Pacing

·         Dark and Foreboding Mood

·         Narrative told in alternating chapters

·         Vague Villain

Read A-Likes

·         Edgar Allen Poe

·         The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

·         The Unseeing by Anna Mazzola

·         The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova