This is an interesting offering by Ms. Blakemore that held my attention throughout. It is 1855 and we retold a story of a young woman, Lucy Blunt, who is about to be hanged for a double murder. I am all for unreliable narrators, and I think Lucy is definitely one of the best I have met recently. We learn only what Lucy wants us to learn, which I find interesting as it leaves a lot to my interpretation of the character.The idea for the novel is not unique, still I think Ms Blakemore managed to write an interesting and atmospheric novel which I recommend.

A full, more thorough review will be posted on CelticsLibrary.com by 2-16-2020

Lucy Blunt sits in a dark, dirty, wet prison cell waiting for her doom. While sitting there, she is visited by a man who wants to hear her story. He feels pity for her and brings her treats that she refuses to eat. When not in her cell, she helps with the laundry, working with the Matron and couple other women. Her story switches between the past leading up to her trial and the current moment. The jumps in time can be a bit disconcerting and jarring at times without any real hint to when the time jump takes place. Her story is a slow burn, but pay close attention. There is more lurking in the shadows than meets the eye at first. Her story is a dark one filled with so many sad moments in her life leading her to her present situation, but there are also moments of beautiful bright colors of moments of stolen joy.

In this atmospheric historical suspense/ women's lit novel we find Lucy Blunt sitting in prison awaiting her hanging while reflecting back to how she got there. Set in 1855 New Hampshire and alternating between past and present (sometimes confusingly), this well paced tale featuring an unreliable narrator keeps you guessing as to what her crimes are, if she did them and will they lead to her demise.
If you like atmospheric period pieces with a dark gritty setting I think you'll enjoy this one as much as I did.

The companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore
Lucy Blunt tells her story as she awaits her date with the gallows but can we believe her version of events? Lucy is funny, resourceful and quick to take advantage of any opportunity that comes her way. Set in New Hampshire during a cold winter in the late 19th century did she commit the murder of her mistress? The story has mystery, betrayal, forbidden love and murder at its heart. You have to have sympathy with Lucy but at the same time, her constant watching over events and people to gain advantage adds a more realistic view of the events. Just how many people did she kill was it one or two or no one? You will have to make your own mind up. Lucy has had a hard life, lost her baby and was mistreated by others .We can’t blame her for trying to improve her lot in a world controlled by rich men. Blakemore writes with sympathy and draws a harsh world for us to view. This is an excellent read by an accomplished writer. You will want to read her other work.

The atmosphere of the novel is almost gothic as New Hampshire experiences one of the bleakest and most bitter winters as Lucy competes with the companion of the lady of the house to win her favours. The slow build up of secrets, betrayals and lies is well written and I enjoyed the suspense of not knowing who died until late in the book. As the narrator, Lucy's character was well developed as events are seen through her eyes, but I would have liked to have got a better feel for both the lady of the house, Mrs Burton and her companion. Overall, an atmospheric, haunting tale of secrets and jealousy.

To be honest I just didn’t like this book. I tried so hard to but about a third of the way in I stopped reading. It could not hold my attention and I had to put it back down. Maybe eventually I can go back to it and try again but to be honest it’s just not my kind of story. The timeline and the servants. This was not for me. I’m so sorry but I have to skip this one for now at least.

I can’t say I recommend it but also can’t say I don’t. I leave that up to the readers as we all like different things. I’m sure others will love it. Just not me.

Thank you to #NetGalley, #LakeUnion, for this eARC.

I was given an eARC of this book in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own.

This one was a ride, folks! I started and finished it within a few hours, because I just could NOT put it down. You know that if I stayed up until midnight, it was a good book, because I like my sleep. It was a fairly easy read, maybe except for the flashbacks not necessarily being denoted. I had to try and figure out whether we were in the jail cell with Lucy or if we were hearing how she got there. It disoriented me a bit, but didn't take away from the story as a whole.

I love historical fiction. And women murderers intrigue me, so this was right up my alley. At first I was fully convinced that Lucy was a murderer and that she was probably a sociopath, but as I got further in, I started to feel sorry for her. She was definitely an unreliable narrator, but like so many other women of her time, Lucy was stuck dealing with a life she was handed because of the things that men did to her, rather than any decisions she made on her own.

This book definitely makes you think long and hard about the death penalty. Lucy is awaiting her own execution, which she knows will be by hanging. There are people who are trying to get her execution stayed, not because they think she is innocent (as a matter of fact one of the people working to keep her alive hated her), but because they do not think that women should be subjected to death, because they are women. I guess that's score one for women of the times?

If women murderers and unreliable narrators are your thing, check this book out. It was published earlier this month, so it's available in stores and online!

This is a portion of the full review on my blog https://trails-of-tales.com/
I will be honest and tell you this straightaway. ‘The Companion’ is a good story but it will not leave you feeling good. And I don’t think the author Kim Taylor Blakemore wrote the story with the intention of giving us any ‘good feels’.

No. The author intended to make us reconsider our own discernment of right and wrong. Who will you blame when it seems like everyone is a victim?

Psychological thrillers are light reads…..said no one ever. ‘The Companion’ does not let you settle into a sense of comfort.

Even though it is not initially apparent exactly how and when the story is going to drop the thunder on you, there is always a sense of foreboding that hangs over every page. The author has been quite astute about creating an environment that does not let you forget that the story started with a death.
As I mentioned before, ‘The Companion’ is a good story. It is an exploration into the nature of love and the limitations posed on it. In essence, ‘The Companion‘ will always be a story of women and the blurred lines between their love and hatred.

In 1855 rural New Hampshire, Lucy Blunt is a servant in a rich household that revolves around the beautiful, blind, capricious, and laudanum-addicted mistress, Eugenie. Lucy's attraction to Eugenie is quickly reciprocated, a circumstance that elevates Lucy from kitchen maid to formal companion – displacing Eugenie's previous companion, Rebecca – as their relationship becomes sexual. But Lucy has secrets she can't afford for either Eugenie or the jealous Rebecca to find out, even if she could be certain that Eugenie loves her rather than only using her as a temporary distraction. To complicate matters, the entire story is being told in flashbacks as Lucy sits in jail after being found guilty for murder – though who she murdered, and why, and under what circumstances, and even if she is actually guilty, are all questions left unanswered until the climax of the novel.

First things first: The Companion is extremely similar to The Confessions of Frannie Langton . We have a maid in love with her mistress, whose habit of consuming laudanum makes her emotions and actions unpredictable; the maid ends up accused of murder; the story is told in flashbacks, coaxed out by a lawyer or journalist as the maid waits in jail. Both use the plot to comment upon the sexism and classism of the mid-1800s, though The Confessions of Frannie Langton also has a lot to say about racism, while The Companion brings in the issue of abilism.

To contrast them, The Confessions of Frannie Langton makes excellent use of gothic horror tropes to serve new, anti-racist purposes, while The Companion is more straightforwardly historic-fiction in style. On the other hand, I thought that the characterizations were stronger in The Companion, particularly Lucy's fellow servants, such as the motherly but proud Cook. The emotional relationship between Lucy and Eugenie also worked much better for me than the one between Frannie and Marguerite. But both books are gorgeously written and handle their chosen social issues with care and insight.

It's hard to complain about too many thoughtful lesbian historical murder mysteries! It's the genre I've always wanted and never knew existed. Read these both!
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3160353616

Dark And Depressing Period Accurate Love Story. This is a seemingly period accurate story of the travails of one woman circa 1855. Told in dual timelines of her time in prison awaiting execution for certain crimes and the tale of how those crimes came about, the overall tone here is fairly depressing but an overall intriguing read. (And at least the second story of this type set as historical fiction Lake Union has published in the last few months.) Set mostly in winter, this is a near perfect deep winter fireside read. Very much recommended.

I'm giving this one three stars. With it's dark undertone it wasn't what I was expecting.
I was expecting a historical book about a woman who goes and becomes a companion to a woman.
Well it was that but oh so much more.
The dark undertone really brings the whole book down, accused of murder she runs away to start a new life as a companion and you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Working your way through the book you can feel her fear as she waits to be hung for her possible crime. Dark ......... talks of poisoning,drowning,killing of an animal though it doesn't go into detail.
Very surprising ending I didn't see coming either.


Published January 14th 2020 by Lake Union Publishing
I was given a complimentary copy of this book. Thank you.
All opinions expressed are my own.

In the same vein as Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, we meet a young woman, accused of a horrible crime, but even when she begins to tell us her story, we can only help but wonder just how innocent and truthful she really is. Kim Taylor Blakemore delivers with The Companion. Set in 1855 New Hampshire, The Companion, follows Lucy Blunt as she is set to hang for a double murder. However, as readers, we are kept in the dark as to who she is actually accused of killing and the events the led up to the murders.

Instead, we spend the novel feeling tense and isolated as the story of Lucy Blunt unfolds. She is a sheltered servant who is spending a winter at a remote estate-- the Burton mansion-- which is almost as cold and isolating as the winter. Lucy arrives at the estate with a fake letter of reference in pursuit of employment. She is taken in by the Burtons and quickly develops a close bond with Eugenie Burton, the lady of the house who is also blind and hyper-aware of her surroundings. This happens in part because her companion, Rebecca, a rather insufferable woman, falls ill early on. When she recovers, there is a clear jealousy between the two women over the affection of Eugenie. This is further fueled by the ideas of class and placement in society-- Lucy is just the kitchen help, who is she to be favored by the lady of the house?

The tension is further fueled by the nuances of a lesbian relationship that begins to unfold in the house. The sex scenes are there and they are not graphic or out of the blue. They align with the overall gothic feel of the book and lend to the tension and bleak excitement of the story. Overall, a solid read that will keep you guessing and immersed in the world of 1855 New Hampshire and the gray winter that surrounds and lends to the emotions of much of the novel.

Book Information
The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore was released on January 14, 2020 from Lake Union Publishing with ISBN 9781542006392. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

I really enjoyed this novel. Lucy Blunt tells us a Gothic and slightly claustrophobic tale of a winter spent as a servant in a remote house in New Hampshire. Lucy is our narrator and from a cell, where she awaits her execution for double murder, we hear the circumstances that lead to her arrest. She protests her innocence, but we all know narrators can be unreliable, and Lucy may be keeping things from us.

The winter is bleak. Lucy is a housemaid for Mr and Mrs Burton. When Mrs Burton’s companion, Rebecca is inexplicably locked outside in the cold, she is taken ill and needs to be replaced. Lucy begins to enjoy her new place in the house. Mrs Burton is blind which adds to the claustrophobia. The descriptions of how she does things show just how vulnerable she is, even though she prefers to manage by herself. I loved the vivid descriptions like Mrs Burton’s embroidery with all the vivid silks and how she manages to use them. The relationship between the two women develops into a friendship, despite their different positions, so when Rebecca starts to recover tension builds. Although we learn a lot about Lucy, the other women are not quite as well developed and I kept finding myself wondering about their emotions and motivation.

My attention was kept throughout, and I loved not knowing who Lucy was accused of killing till the end because it kept the tension. I would recommend this to people who enjoy historical fiction as well as mysteries like I do.

Enjoyed this compelling , intriguing read. Lucy is a engaging storyteller ,as she tells her story ,I felt like I was sitting in the prison cell with her listening to speak of her life between past and present, emotional and endearing.

EXCERPT: Mary was a little lamb,
Her soul as white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went
Death was sure to go.

He tracked her to the brook one day,
Which was against the rule.
He tempted her quite far astray
And made the lamb a fool.

She tried, she tried to turn him out
But still he lingered near
And waited patiently about
Till Mary did not fear.

What made the lamb trust him so
Most any would descry?
Oh! He loved Mary too, you know.
Tis pity she must die.

ABOUT THIS BOOK:
1855, New Hampshire. Lucy Blunt is set to hang for a double murder. Murderess or victim? Only Lucy knows the truth.

In the shadow of the gallows, Lucy reflects on the events that led to her bitter downfall—from the moment she arrived at the rambling Burton mansion looking for work and a better life to the grisly murders themselves.

In a mysterious household of locked doors and forbidden affections, Lucy slips comfortably into the shadows, where she believes the indiscretions of her past will remain hidden. But when Lucy’s rising status becomes a threat to the mistress’s current companion, the delicate balance of power and loyalty begins to shift, setting into motion a brewing storm of betrayal, suspicion, and rage.

Now, with her execution looming closer, Lucy’s allies fight to have her sentence overturned as the tale she’s spinning nears its conclusion. But how much of her story can we trust? After all, Lucy’s been known to bend the truth…

MY THOUGHTS: I really enjoyed the first third of this book, but then my interest began to wane as it was just more of the same. My interest flared briefly in a couple of spots, but it was not sustained. I found myself, by the 60% mark, skimming the text, desperate to find something that I could get my teeth into. It seemed an awful lot longer than its 268 pages.

The story swings back and forth between Lucy's prison as she awaits her execution, and her life in the Burton household. This can get a little confusing as it does so without warning many times in each chapter, sometimes for only a paragraph or two, and serves absolutely no purpose.

None of the characters are in any way likeable...and although this isn't necessary for me to enjoy a good read, I found myself not caring at all what happened to any of them. Which is just as well, really, as I found the ending quite odd and inconclusive.

There is little to no atmosphere, and if the love scenes were meant to be sensuous then they have completely missed the mark.

Not a read that I will be recommending.

😒😒

#TheCompanion #NetGalley

Reading is a personal and subjective experience, and what appeals to one may not please another. If you enjoyed the excerpt from The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore, and the plot outline appeals, please do go ahead and read it. You may well enjoy it as have many other readers.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Lake Union via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage

THE COMPANION by Kim Taylor Blakemore wasn’t what I expected, but, then again, I am not sure what I expected. In 1855 New Hampshire, Lucy Blunt is waiting for the hangman. While waiting, she is telling her story to a newspaper reporter. How did she get into this predicament? The story jumps back to when she joined the Burton household as a maid, alternating with the present and her life in jail, and sometimes jumping further back to explain how she got to the point of having to seek employment instead of being the lady of the house. All the while we are left wondering: who is Lucy?
As the novel develops things get murky and you realize just how unreliable Lucy is as a narrator. Did events really happen as she said or has she twisted the truth to make herself look better? Blakemore’s descriptions of the setting are done so well I can feel the cold and bleakness of the winter and the heat and beauty of the summer. The characters and their interactions are also well-written, you can easily visualize them. I didn’t ever come to like Lucy or any of the other characters, but I was intrigued and wanted to see where it was going and what happened next, or, at least, what Lucy said actually happened.
This is not a book to escape with, but the writing will keep you turning pages.
Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
#TheCompanion #LakeUnionPublishing #KimTaylorBlakemore

Lucy Blunt tells her story from a New Hampshire prison in 1855. She lists the four deaths for which she is allegedly responsible. Bleak? Yes, as is her whole life. From her cell she recalls her abandonment by most everyone she cared for. Her occasional past thefts and bad choices haunt her most recent chance for happiness. Kim Taylor Blakemore offers the reader the opportunity to decide if and how guilty Lucy is and, at the same time, to judge the good and evil in each person who comes into her life.

I received a complimentary ARC copy of The Companion, A Novel by Kim Taylor Blakemore from NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing in order to read and give an honest review.

"an exquisitely written, atmospheric suspense that kept me engaged right to the last page..."

Author, Kim Taylor Blakemore gives us a beautifully written historical fiction novel brimming with slow-building suspense and atmosphere.  Set in 1855, New Hampshire, our narrator, Lucy Blunt is in her jail cell awaiting the hangman’s noose looking back at the events that led her to that moment.   

Lucy running away from her past shows up with falsified reference letters in hand at Mill owner Mr. Burton’s estate to get a position as a servant. Hired, Lucy settles in working in the kitchen, although the work is tiring and tedious but acts as a distraction from her past and the overwhelming grief that haunts her.  Her predecessor Mary is found dead and she is thrown in the middle of a grieving household. When Rebecca, the blind mistress, Eugenie Burton’s nasty companion, falls ill, Lucy ends up filling in. Unlike Rebecca, Lucy is respectful and kind towards Eugenie, earning her respect and affection.  Once jealousy rears its ugly head betrayal, threats and murder are not far behind.  

One of my favourite things about The Companion is the character development Each character felt well rounded, distinct and very real, each struggling with their lot in life. My only complaint, to be honest, I didn’t care for the open ending, in my opinion, it felt unfinished, I felt it deserved "more". Although the ending wasn't for me the story was an exquisitely written, atmospheric suspense that kept me engaged right to the last page. I would highly recommend.

The Companion is a dark, atmospheric historical fiction novel. Lucy Blunt is waiting execution in a jail cell for two murders. Told in present 1855 New Hampshire and weaving in the backstory of how she got to be in jail. Lucy is an unreliable narrator, but I had a lot of empathy for her and was on her side. That's the fun part of this book because you could disagree with that and we'd have a great discussion. Anyway, she's a survivor and looking for work. She stumbles on a house and is hired by the cook. The occupants of the main house is where the meat of the story starts to unfold as the characters are introduced. First there's Eugenie(Mrs. Burton) the lady of the house. She is blind and hyper aware of her surroundings and she needs someone around to help her. Rebecca, Mr. Burton's niece is that person. It's 1855 and Lucy is nothing more than "the kitchen help", but Eugenie becomes fond of her and wants her attention more than Rebecca's. An undercurrent of jealousy begins to develop when Lucy spends more and more time with Eugenie that threatens Rebecca. Class division is an important part of how well people are treated and Blakemore did a great job of making the distinction that lines will not be crossed no matter what the circumstances. As the story progresses, more truths come to light and the characters become exposed to make this unputdownable until the end to find out if Lucy will hang for the murders or if she will be pardoned.

Ultimately, the writing is great and puts the reader into the life and time period of Lucy Blunt.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union publishing for an advance copy.

The publisher and Netgalley provided me with an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Lucy Blunt is a convicted murderess. She is going to hang for a vengeful act of double homicide, and opportunistic journalists want her story to be the making of their career.

Lucy Blunt is a masquerade. Lucy Blunt is an invention.

Lucy Blunt is a bereaved mother. Lucy Blunt is a victim. Lucy Blunt is impetuous and mad.

Lucy's story unfolds in her own voice, and the narrative alternates between her cold prison cell and her memories of the isolated existence that became her world. Lucy seeks a position in the Burton household out of sheer desperation. She is a kitchen maid and jill of all trades who catches the attention of the enigmatic mistress, Eugenie, when Eugenie's companion falls ill.

Soon Lucy is indispensable to Eugenie, and when the companion recovers there is a protracted, insidious fight for dominance in claiming the mistress's affections. A series of catastrophic choices, misguided loyalties and personal tragedies place Lucy Blunt on an irredeemable path.

This nuanced gothic tale reminded me of Emma Donoghue's novel Slammerkin. It is a lushly written, unforgettable account of a woman's condemnation for being caught in a vicious cycle of poverty and the bleak, granite expectations of humanity.