GAD'S HALL [Mass Market Paperback]

Norah Lofts (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Fawcett (1977)
• ASIN: B000MW8LOI
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,236,959 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars senior reader, April 7, 2008

By 

senior citizen "avid reader" (crystal lake , ill) - See all my reviews

i purchased this book at a secondhand bookstore just by cover alone. it intrigued me. as i started reading time passed and chores didn't get done. this book is an enjoyable mystery about a woman who fights for her family's fear in the house. not going to tell the story in 15 to 20 paragraphs as some readers do and spoil the reading of the story. this is one of the good old books that you tell people about without loaning it out for fear of not getting it back. no sex, no swear words, no cussing, fighting, killing just to sell the book. just a darn good read to take along anywhere. just don't leave it in the doc's office for you will not get it back. not a harlaquin trashy book.

the story: an invalid husband and wife move to this old tudor house with their three children. events happen to bring fearful feelings to them. the wife finds out about a previous woman who lived in the tudor house and her tragic events over a century ago. the tention builds as she finds out clues to ease and solve the tragic event to bring peace to the house.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read for a cold winter night, March 8, 2009

By 

Lisa A. D. Tyler (Phelps, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

I first read this when I was 20, and now I am 49 and I still re-read it every year. As with most Norah Lofts stories, there are multiple layers of place and charachter. This is a story under a story so to speak- Gad's Hall is purchased by a couple in dire straits with three children who are desperate for a new place to live, and Gad's suits their needs perfectly-or so it seems. Gad's was owned by the same family for many, many years until the recent past, when the present owner finds he must give it up.

Once established, the principle charachter Jill finds herself experiencing strange feelings about parts of her new property, particularly the empty locked room upstairs. No one knows why the room is empty and locked. Finally, her young daughter leaves Gad's because she simply cannot live there-she is terrified by something she cannot explain.

Which leads us to the haunting of Gad's-a new story set about 100 years earlier on the same property. The Thorley family is still residing at Gad's as they have generation upon generation. Isabel Thorley is raising her 4 daughters and 1 son by herself after the untimely demise of her husband. Isabel is a unique person for the age, running Gad's farms and herds by herself and her life is difficult. Her 4 daughters are all unique in their own way, and each grows up to have a very different life than the one expected. Because one daughter dabbles with the occult, life is irrevocably changed at Gad's, even though few of the inhabitants really know what has happened. This secret is carried up to modern day when finally the pervasive evil has been detected.

Miss Loft's personalities are so well defined, and the aura of the inhabitants of Gad are so resounding one is sorry when the story finishes. So much attention to detail is furnished and yet the story is so compact. Sorry to see it end.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book to read around Halloween, August 26, 2008

By 

R. A. Wells "CanaryAlice" (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

If you like me like spooky stories this is a great one. I enjoy reading this one about October every year. Norah Lofts has also written other books about hauntings and other supernatural phenomena. Most of her books are set in Suffolk but not all.