I am contributing to the Book Reviews today as I have been reading a ghostly book perfect for this time of year…
Sarah Water’s is one of the few authors of our generation who makes me grateful for being born in this lifetime. I have read all of her books [The Fingersmith, Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, The Night Watch] and can truly say that each one is a little gem in its own right. For some time now, in corner of my mind, I was aware of a long awaited new release ‘The Little Stranger’ but had never quite got around to buying and reading it.
My favourite uncle often passes through London on whirlwind trips, sometimes I see him, sometimes I don’t, it doesn’t matter really, I know he is there. Last week I went to visit my mother [she runs her own business where I often go and disrupt events] and noticed ‘The Little Stranger’ sat upon my pile of post! Whilst I had been on holiday my uncle had passed through [I make him sound like a traveling salesman, he is not, he's a professor] and casually left it for me. We share the same love for good books and good bookstores, although he would probably debate my version of ‘good’. He didn’t call, or email to say he had left the book – he didn’t ask for any thanks.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that books are love…and hefty jewels of books like Sarah Water’s, are the best kind of love. I can’t simplify it any more.
“The Little Stranger’ is all you could want from a ghost story set in the English countryside. A doctor arrives on a day thick with summer – at the door of a once glittering, now crumbling manor – Hundred’s House, home to the Ayres family for over two centuries. Siblings Roddie, Caroline and their mother Mrs. Ayres are still rattling around in the empty house, struggling with its upkeep and the changing society outside of its confines.
The doctor – Dr. Faraday, is infact not called out to the house to see a member of the family, but Betty, a 14-year-old skivvy, the only servant now employed in a house that once provided work for dozens. Complaining of abdominal pain; the doctor suspects being young she is attempting to evade work, but permits her a day in bed, and points out to her employers that she is homesick and nervous, isolated in her basement bedroom. Betty’s fear that something is deeply wrong in the house is laughed off, as the product of country ignorance. The beginnings of a classic ghost story…
Dr. Faraday soon becomes entwined in the family’s lives, at first attracted by its strange charm and we see the series of events unfold through his eyes.
With a combination of uncomfortable social observations and encounters played out by the family and the dismissal of Betty’s ongoing concerns, Sarah Waters sets the scene for a brilliant, tense and perverse tale of family mystery.
As with all Sarah Water’s novels, the mood will linger long after you turn the last page of the book…
Available to buy here. Several of Sarah Water’s books have been made into TV productions. Take a look at the trailers here which portray completely the dark essence of all her novels. Lauren is up next, with another great review to make you shiver!
Supermarket Sarah!
Pretty
Dreamy Lavender, Mint and Pinks
