A review by ceallaighsbooks
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

“And then, standing among the trunks of the fruit trees, silver-grey in the moonlight, I recalled that the way to banish an old ghost that continues its haunting is to exorcise it. Well then, mine should be exorcised. I should tell my tale, not aloud, by the fireside, not as a diversion for idle listeners—it was too solemn, and too real, for that. But I should set it down on paper, with every care and in every detail. I would write my own ghost story. Then perhaps I should finally be free of it for whatever life remained for me to enjoy.”

TITLE—The Woman In Black
AUTHOR—Susan Hill
PUBLISHED—1983
PUBLISHER—Hamish Hamilton

GENRE—gothic ghost story; felt like a La Llorona retelling maybe?
SETTING—England, but I have no idea what time period 😅, maybe early 20th c? could be earlier though… (still not sure how the house had electricity all the way out where it was but)
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Ghosts!, turn of the century? England, life in London vs life in the country, modernism vs superstition, what motivates a haunting, death, grief, vengeance

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (It was a three-star plot but a five-star story—BRUTAL ending though 😰)
BONUS ELEMENT/S—<SPOILER>The dog didn’t die! lol 😝</SPOILER>
STORY/PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PREMISE—⭐️⭐️⭐️
EXECUTION—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Whatever was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had passed me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not ‘real’. No. But what was ‘real’? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality.”

Have been curious about this book for a while now and decided to give it a read this #SpookySeason and had a lot of fun! I liked how the MC never doubted for a minute that what he was seeing/experiencing was something supernatural and that his preoccupation was mainly about what he should do about that and what does that mean in terms of his conception of reality? And what can he do, if anything, to help? I also liked the motivation for the ghost’s haunting and thought the ghost’s movements and activities were very believable.

Final thoughts: Definitely one I recommend adding to your TBR if you’re a fan of the traditional British/Victorian/gothic-style ghost stories.

“The weather might change, the wind drop, the sun shine, Eel Marsh House might stand quiet and still. It would be no less dreadful. Whoever haunted it and whatever terrible emotions still possessed them would continue to disturb and distress anyone who came near here, that I knew.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

CW // drowning, death, child deaths, death by vehicular accident (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
  • other Gothic & Victorian English (& Irish) ghost stories
  • Laura Purcell
  • Edgar Allan Poe
  • THE SEANCE, by John Harwood
  • THIS HOUSE IS HAUNTED, by John Boyne
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