A Haunting on the Hill
A Novel
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3.6 • 82 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From award-winning author Elizabeth Hand comes the first-ever novel authorized to return to the world of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House—an "eerily beautiful, strangely seductive, and genuinely upsetting" (Alix E. Harrow) new story of isolation and longing perfect for our present time.
**Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Harper's Bazaar**
Open the door . . . .
Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play Witching Night, 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 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 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 . . .
"A fitting—and frightening—homage." —New York Times Book Review
"It’s thrilling to find this is a true hybrid of these two ingenious women’s work—a novel with all the chills of Jackson that also highlights the contemporary flavor and evocative writing of Hand." —Washington Post
"Only the brilliant Elizabeth Hand could so expertly honor Jackson's rage, wit, and vision." —Paul Tremblay
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this contemporary homage to Shirley Jackson’s brand of psychological horror—and specifically her famous novel The Haunting of Hill House—a theater troupe unravels during a retreat to a dilapidated mansion. After years of creative atrophy, playwright Holly is feeling jazzed about her stage adaptation of a real-life witch hunt—and thrilled about receiving a grant to complete the project. But an impulsive decision to spend the money renting Hill House, an isolated and very creepy house in upstate New York, unleashes a chain of ominous occurrences that threaten the already-tenuous mental health of Holly and her three performers. We enjoyed every beat of this smart and scary haunted house story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This riveting tale from Nebula Award winner Hand (Hokuloa Road) eerily, if sometimes unevenly, updates and riffs on Shirley Jackson's classic ghost story The Haunting of Hill House. Twenty years ago, tragedy derailed Holly Sherwin's burgeoning playwriting career, but she's optimistic about the powerful new piece she's drafted, so she rents the remote Hill House as a retreat and rehearsal space where she, her girlfriend, Nisa, and two others can prepare for its debut performance. Interpersonal conflicts and uncanny phenomena begin immediately, but the group insists on staying and completing the project. When a sudden storm threatens to further isolate them, they realize the old house is much more than a quirky relic of a bygone age. While the story takes its time getting underway, Hand demonstrates masterful control over the ebb and flow of tension once it does. Lush atmospheric details and sharply observed characterization abound, but occasionally overload the plot to the point that certain elements end up feeling extraneous or underutilized. Still, this chillingly mesmerizing narrative is a worthy addition to the haunted house canon.
Customer Reviews
A treat
A great haunted house story! I found the premise and the setting to be super intriguing, as I expected. I will note that the characters didn’t seem likable to me, which I’m not sure was intentional. Either way, I loved the book. I wish there was more closure about why/how things ended, but all in all it’s definitely worth your time if you like Shirley Jackson or horror books.
Creepy and captivating
I enjoyed the book, easy read and full of plenty of creeps and great descriptions of spooky situations. My only negative was is that I was left with wanting more of an explanation of the mysterious characters.