Synopsis: Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor in London, is summoned to Crythin Gifford to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, and to sort through her papers before returning to London. It is here that Kipps first sees the woman in black and begins to gain an impression of the mystery surrounding her. From the funeral he travels to Eel Marsh House and sees the woman again; he also hears the terrifying sounds on the marsh.
Despite Kipps’s experiences he resolves to spend the night at the house and fulfil his professional duty. It is this night at Eel Marsh House that contains the greatest horror for Kipps. Kipps later discovers the reasons behind the hauntings at Eel Marsh House. The book ends with the woman in black exacting a final, terrible revenge.
Release Date: 2016 (this version) 10th October 1983 (original version)
Format Read: Paperback
Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Mystery, Gothic, Classic, Historical
Pages: 200
Review: I was expecting this to be so much creepier and eerie than it was. To me it felt like nothing was scary about it at all. I was so very disappointed in this as I’d been wanting to read it for so long and it just let me down big time.
So it was written incredibly well and it was still enticing and interesting, the woman in black was intriguing so it certainly kept you wanting to know more just to figure out who she is and what her story was and why she was still hanging around.
What wasn’t scary about it was that literally nothing happened to the man staying at the residence. He heard things, he saw things and that was literally it. It left me feeling like I’d been tricked so badly as I was excepting it to make my heart race in fear and anticipation and I didn’t get that even once.
It wasn’t a bad or boring book in any way at all, it was still an interesting read and not really much like anything I’ve read before. It just certainly wasn’t what I was expecting from
Where to buy: Amazon UK, Wordery, Book Depository, Waterstones, Amazon USA
About the Author: Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1942. Her hometown was later referred to in her novel A Change for the Better (1969) and some short stories especially “Cockles and Mussels”.
She attended Scarborough Convent School, where she became interested in theatre and literature. Her family left Scarborough in 1958 and moved to Coventry where her father worked in car and aircraft factories. Hill states that she attended a girls’ grammar school, Barr’s Hill. Her fellow pupils included Jennifer Page, the first Chief Executive of the Millennium Dome. At Barrs Hill she took A levels in English, French, History and Latin, proceeding to an English degree at King’s College London. By this time she had already written her first novel, The Enclosure which was published by Hutchinson in her first year at university. The novel was criticised by The Daily Mail for its sexual content, with the suggestion that writing in this style was unsuitable for a “schoolgirl”.
Her next novel Gentleman and Ladies was published in 1968. This was followed in quick succession by A Change for the Better, I’m the King of the Castle, The Albatross and other stories, Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, A Bit of Singing and Dancing and In the Springtime of Year, all written and published between 1968 and 1974.
In 1975 she married Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells and they moved to Stratford upon Avon. Their first daughter, Jessica, was born in 1977 and their second daughter, Clemency, was born in 1985. Hill has recently founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, which has published one work of fiction per year.
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