Book after Book

By Susan Hill Published by Profile Books Since reading The Small Hand by Susan Hill last year, her more famous ghost story, The Woman in Black , shot to the top of my reading list. Now that I’ve read it, ghost story sounds so diminishing that I’d rather describe it as a supernatural masterpiece. Before starting the book, I made the mistake of watching the trailer of the film of the same name starring Daniel Radcliffe that came out this year. I call it a mistake because that one minute and forty-one seconds scared me beyond imagination. So much, in fact, that I refused to do any reading after dusk – just in case! The Woman in Black opens in the winter of 1920. Arthur Kipps is sitting around the fireplace with his family when he is prompted to tell them a ghost story. Upset, he leaves the room. Ghost stories are not a laughing matter so he later sets out to write a memoir narrating the dreadful events that marked his life forever. That’s how we step back in time and we travel with Arth...

By Susan Hill Published by Profile Books Due to unprecedented amounts of snow and extremely low temperatures, this winter I’ve lost count of all the times I’ve seen a book described as “perfect for a day spent sitting by the fireplace”! I promised to myself that I wouldn’t say that about this book – not only because I think that The Small Hand is perfect for any time of year but also because it makes for a rather chilling read. The Small Hand opens with Adam Snow, a dealer in antiquarian books, getting lost while driving back from a client’s. While looking for help he finds The White House, whose derelict appearance and overgrown garden are obvious signs of abandon. While standing in front of the house, Adam senses a small hand – the hand of a child – creep into his own. He looks around but there is no-one there. Despite the strangeness of this event, however, Adam is not scared. On the contrary, the hand feels benevolent and in the following months he will often hope to experience t...

By Kate Mosse Published by Orion Books Expanding an idea that she previously explored in The Cave - a novella that was part of the 2009 Quick Reads initiative - Kate Mosse has created an evocative ghost story that I just could not get enough of. In 1933, Freddie Watson travels to Toulouse in search of Monsieur Saurat, a known translator of Occitan, an old Romance language. Presented with an antique parchment written in this ancient tongue, the French librarian enquiries about its origins. And so the tale begins… It’s 1928 and Freddie, still unable to cope with the loss of his beloved brother during the Great War, has been recommended a change of scenery by his doctors. He sets off to the South of France and, while travelling through the Pyrenees, he gets caught up in a snowstorm and loses control of his car. Surviving the crash, he walks in the woods until he arrives in an eerily quiet village where he takes refuge at the pension run by Madame Galy and her surly husband. Despite being...