The Company

[A] stylish Gothic chiller * Irish Times *Those brilliant colours and patterns hide a terrible secret - one that has poisoned the lives of this unhappy family for many years … The neat set-up allows for a pervasive air of madness; the house is claustrophobic and its inhabitants are increasingly delusional * TLS *Every page of The Company is full of atmosphere … While it is hard to say whether a book will become a classic, I believe this one is destined for it – Tyler Tichelaar * The Gothic Wanderer blog *A wonderfully creepy Victorian tale to chill the reader * Historical Novel Society *The Company is diabolically good. The sibling heirs to a troubled wallpaper manufacturer are charmed by the charismatic Mr Rivers. But is he a saviour or something corrupt and corrupting? J.M. Varese’s gothic tale is sinuously elegant and claustrophobic as deadly Victorian wallpaper – Kate Griffin, author of FYNESHADEThe Company is a chilling gothic thriller, both subtle and relentless in its build-up of terror. The story creeps up on you much as the patterns in its poisonous wallpapers do: entrancing, entwining, and entrapping. J.M. Varese, with this deliciously disquieting novel, joins the company of Shirley Jackson, Sarah Waters, and Henry James – Hollis Seamon, author of CORPOREALITYThe Company is a roller-coaster of a read. Varese brings to life the true grittiness of 19th-century London with great enthusiasm, combining historical fiction with a feel for the gothic thriller – Amanda Foreman, author of THE DUCHESSReimagining Victorian haunting for a new generation, this brilliant novel grounds its terrors in the company we keep and the Companies we make and trust. As eery as the stories of M.R. James, The Company creeps up on its readers before it so splendidly pounces. The new master of suspense has arrived – John Bowen, author of OTHER DICKENSA crisp and austere work of Victorian gothic, exploring the brutal history of the wallpaper industry, where designs of entrancing beauty came drenched in blood and suffering – Eva Dolan, author of THIS IS HOW IT ENDSA naïve young woman, a charismatic stranger, a curse on the house where they struggle for mastery-from these staples of Gothic fiction, Jon Varese has crafted a deliciously chilling tale. The authentic and engaging voice of Lucy Braithwhite draws you into a sheltered world where unease and terror build slowly and subtly until the stunning climax. Like the brilliant wallpapers that made the Braithwhite fortune, this novel both conceals and reveals poisonous family secrets involving The Company – Mamta Chaudhry, author of HAUNTING PARIS

J.M. Varese is an American novelist and literary historian whose first novel, The Spirit Photographer (2018), was published to critical acclaim. Varese has also written widely on Victorian literature and culture, and has served in various capacities, most recently as Director of Outreach, for The Dickens Project at the University of California for over two decades.