Book Review: The Pure World Comes by Rami Ungar

The Pure World Comes is the story of a young woman, Shirley Dobbins, who works as a maid in London during the late nineteenth century. After the unfortunate sudden demise of her employers, she is taken on by the new guardian to the master and the mistress of the house. Sir Joseph is an eccentric scientist, but there’s not much that Shirley Dobbins can’t handle, except perhaps having to confront her worst fear.

I enjoyed this highly entertaining gothic horror from the master of fear, Rami Ungar. It’s evident he’s researched the time period and, for the most part, I was completely immersed in the setting.

Shirley Dobbins is a wonderful character. I took to her immediately because of her hard working attitude and desire to do things well, overcoming the prejudice of others due to her lazy eye and difficult upbringing. She is consistent throughout the book, and I love how she seizes the opportunities presented to her, fends off the attentions of her employer’s son and grapples with propriety when it comes to friendship.

The rest of the cast are slightly more stock characters, but they are entertaining, especially the mustache twirling Sir Joseph, and the love sick Griffin.

The horror aspects were suitably melodramatic in keeping with the time period, with some tense and creepy scenes, and I will never look at a toilet the same way again!

I loved the central theme of the pure world and would have liked to spend more time exploring the concept. Ungar makes it so interesting that I would have happily read a book two or three times as long.

Unfortunately there were a couple of scenes that stretched my suspension of disbelief almost to breaking point. One where there’s a girls night in and the other when a character recounts a horrendous experience. While both scenes were well described, I lost the illusion of being present with the characters and remembered I was reading a carefully crafted story.

Ungar is going from strength to strength.