Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 14 October 2010.

Best-selling author of The Woman In Black, Susan Hill is on top form with this chilling ghost story about a book dealer who comes across a derelict old house and suddenly feels an invisible child’s hand in his own. Determined to learn more, he uncovers the tale of family tragedy and events begin to take a sinister turn. Hill’s tale maintains the tension to the very end.

Comparison: Stephen Booth, Andrew Taylor, Iain Banks
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Synopsis

This is a Christmas edition of the bestselling, chilling ghost story. Late one summer's evening, antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow is returning from a client visit when he takes a wrong turn. He stumbles across a derelict Edwardian house, and compelled by curiosity, approaches the door. Standing before the entrance, he feels the unmistakable sensation of a small cold hand creeping into his own, 'as if a child had taken hold of it'. At first he is merely puzzled by the odd incident but then begins to suffer attacks of fear and panic, and is visited by nightmares. He is determined to learn more about the house and its once-magnificent, now overgrown garden but when he does so, and while travelling in search of a rare book, he receives further, increasingly sinister, visits from the small hand.

Reviews

'Masterfully done... subtle, elegant'
(The Times)

'Short and crisply told... The tension is built up gradually until it is taut and physical'
(Independent)

'On chilling form'
(Vogue)

'Beautifully evoked... what's most impressive is what hangs between the spare lines of Hill's precise prose... this is a wonderful piece of storytelling that does what a good story ought to do: it keeps you guessing, pulls you in'
(Jeremy Dyson, Guardian)

About the Author

Susan Hill has won both the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards and been shortlisted for the Booker. She is the subject of one of the Vintage Living Texts. She runs her own publishing business, Longbarn Books, and edited the literary magazine, Books and Company. Her novels are set for GCSE and A Level, and her play, The Woman in Black, has been running in London's West End for 15 years.   In 2011 Susan Hill was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library, awarded to an author for a body of work. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation