Novel Experience

The Woman In Black

Susan Hill

Arthur Kipps, a solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral Mrs Drablow, the sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House, unaware of the tragic secrets hidden within. When he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black – and her terrible purpose.

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The Winter Ghosts

Kate Mosse

The Great War took Freddie’s  brother & his peace of mind. In the winter of 1928, Freddie is travelling through the Pyrenees when, his car spins off the road. Shaken, he stumbles into a village. There he meets Fabrissa, a beautiful local woman, also mourning a lost generation. 

That night, they share their stories of loss. By dawn, he will have stumbled across a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries.

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The Turn of the Screw

Henry James

A governess arrives at an English estate to look after Miles, 10, & Flora, 8. At first, everything appears normal but then events begin to weave a spell of psychological terror. A ghost appears before the governess. It’s the lover of Miss Jessel, the former governess. Later, the ghost of Jessel herself appears before the governess & Flora. The governess suspects that the spirits have some sort of evil communication going on with the children.

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The Little Stranger

Sarah Waters

In a dusty post-war summer, a doctor is called to Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand & handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at 9.40. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr Faraday know how closely, & how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

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The House of Lost Souls

F. G. Cottam

The Fischer House was the scene of a vicious crime in the 1920s. At its heart was a beautiful woman, a photographer, whose only legacy are some photographs & the clues to a mystery. Paul escaped the house 10 years before, a damaged man. Now 3 students will die unless he dares to go back.  

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The Ghost Writer

John Harwood

Viola was a writer of ghost stories, whose work lies forgotten until her great-grandson, as a boy  learns how to open his mother’s secret drawer. He finds a manuscript, & Gerard’s life is changed. What’s the threat his mother is so obsessive to protect him from?

Gerard’s quest to unveil the mystery that shrouds his family, & his life, will lead him to a long-abandoned house & the terror of a ghost story come alive.

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Help for the Haunted

John Searles

14-year-old Sylvie overhears her parents on the phone. This is not the first late-night call they have received since they have an uncommon occupation: helping ‘haunted souls’ find peace. Yet Sylvie senses that this call is different, especially when they are lured to an old church. Once there, her parents enter the church, leaving Sylvie in the car. She later wakes to the sound of gunfire. The story weaves between the years leading up to that night & the months following, as Sylvie searches for answers to secrets that have haunted her family . . .

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Phantom Nights

John Farris

1952. At 14 Alex is rebellious by nature, an outcast in his own family, & mute, He expresses himself by conceiving daredevil stunts resulting with him in the care of a young nurse, Mally. The friendship that results is ended by an unspeakable crime that costs Mally her Or not quite ended, for Mally finds herself trapped in a nether world by the force of Alex’s will & his need to exact revenge for Mally’s death.

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Heart Shaped Box

Joe Hill

Buy my stepfather’s ghost’ read the e-mail. So Jude did. He bought it, delivered in a heart-shaped box, because his fans ate up that kind of story. It was perfect for his collection: the occult books & all the rest of the paraphanalia that goes along with his kind of hard/goth rock. But the rest of his collection doesn’t make the house feel cold. And none of the artefacts bring a vengeful old ghost with black scribbles over his eyes out of the shadows to chase Jude out of his home, & make him run for his life . . .

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