Source: Purchased
Description: From three-time Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, and Nebula Award-winning author Elizabeth Hand comes the first-ever authorized novel to return to the world of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House: a suspenseful, contemporary, and terrifying story of longing and isolation all its own.
Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play, The Witch of Edmonton, she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the ornate, if crumbling, gothic mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie—the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play.
Despite her own hesitations, Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, agrees to join Holly in renting the house out for a month, and soon a troupe of actors, each with ghosts of their own, arrive. Yet as they settle in, the house’s peculiarities are made known: strange creatures stalk the grounds, disturbing sounds echo throughout the halls, and time itself seems to shift. All too soon, Holly and her friends find themselves at odds not just with one another, but with the house itself. It seems something has been waiting in Hill House all these years, and it no longer intends to walk alone . . .
Genre: Fiction
Why I Picked This Book: I've really enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House so of course I had to pick up this one - especially since it's the first authorized novel from the Shirley Jackson estate.
My Impression: The original Hill House story is frequently billed as a horror story which I don't think is the most accurate description. It is a horror story but not in a way that is always obvious. There are no jump scares or violence or blood and gore. Instead, the atmosphere is off and as the book progresses it becomes more and more wrong and claustrophobic. None of the characters are the most likable but as the story goes on their behavior slowly changes and becomes more and more irrational. It's only when you finish the book do you realize just how creepy it is.
This authorized visit back to the world of Hill House mirrors the original in a lot of ways. The characters are unlikable and not only did I as a reader not like them (especially Nisa) I'm not exactly sure they liked each other. While there are a few creepy events or sights nothing much happens for most of the book however like Jackson, the author does a good job of making the atmosphere become more and more unsettling until the finale. It's only when I finished the book did I realize just how creepy the story was.
The chapters are very short and it read very quickly. Hand did a good job recreating the atmosphere of the original book and I ended up enjoying this one.
Would I Read More of this Series/Author? I would if I see another story that interests me.
Would I Recommend this Book? If you are a fan of the book version of The Haunting of Hill House then absolutely. If you're looking for a full on scary book this might be a bit more subtle than what you're looking for.
Would I Read More of this Series/Author? I would if I see another story that interests me.
Would I Recommend this Book? If you are a fan of the book version of The Haunting of Hill House then absolutely. If you're looking for a full on scary book this might be a bit more subtle than what you're looking for.
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