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The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story (Vintage) [Kindle Edition]

by Vintage
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)

Print List Price: $14.00
Kindle Price: $9.99 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: $4.01 (29%)
Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
This price was set by the publisher

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Book Description

The classic ghost story by Susan Hill: a chilling tale about a menacing spectre haunting a small English town.
 
Arthur Kipps is an up-and-coming London solicitor who is sent to Crythin Gifford—a faraway town in the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway—to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client, Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. Mrs. Drablow’s house stands at the end of the causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows. The routine business trip he anticipated quickly takes a horrifying turn when he finds himself haunted by a series of mysterious sounds and images—a rocking chair in a deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child’s scream in the fog, and, most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black. Psychologically terrifying and deliciously eerie, The Woman in Black is a remarkable thriller of the first rate.


Editorial Reviews

Review

"A rattling good yarn, the sort that chills the mind as well as the spine." --The Guardian

"Excellent. . . . magnificently eerie. . . . compulsive reading." --Evening Standard

"The most brilliantly effective spine chillder you will ever encounter." --The Daily Telegraph

"[A] highly efficient chiller. . . . Nerve shredding." --The Daily Express

About the Author

Susan Hill’s novels and short stories have won the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham and John Llewellyn Rhys Prizes. Her novels include The Mist in the Mirror, the Simon Serallier crime series, and I’m the King of the Castle. She also wrote Mrs. de Winter, the sequel to Rebecca, and her ghost story The Woman in Black was adapted for the stage and has been running in London for over 21 years. She lives in Gloucestershire, where she runs her own small publishing company, Long Barn Books.

Product Details

  • File Size: 1809 KB
  • Print Length: 178 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0307950212
  • Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (October 18, 2011)
  • Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B004J4WKLK
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Lending: Not Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,386 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

I saw the movie before reading the book. Brinker  |  18 reviewers made a similar statement
I highly recommend this if you love a good ghost story. Cindy Mischke  |  21 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 45 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT ghost story October 22, 2011
By AJ
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
No neat and tidy endings here, folks. Just strap yourselves in for a great ghost story, complete with nighttime hauntings galore. This is one of those stores that might keep you up at night, just envisioning everything again and again. The author does a great job of making the reader feel like he or she is there with this young attorney - suffering through the whole thing.

Enjoy! I'm now looking forward to the movie next year - shame they couldn't have released it around Halloween...
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Ghost Story January 27, 2012
Format:Paperback
'Yes, I had a story, a true story, a story of haunting and evil, fear and confusion, horror and tragedy.

Storyline

Arthur Kipps is a junior solicitor from London who has been asked by his employer to attend the funeral of Mrs. Alice Drablow in Crythin Gifford. He must also visit her residence in order to collect any important paperwork that she may have been left behind. Arthur sees the woman in black at Mrs. Drablow's funeral and again at her residence at Eel Marsh House. She doesn't appear to be a malevolent spirit so Arthur doesn't worry too much and decides to spend the night at the house so that he can quickly finish his work and return to London. But that night, Arthur begins to hear unexplainable sounds and worries that he may have underestimated the woman in black.

'...piercing through the surface of my dreams, came the terrified whinnying of the pony and the crying and calling of that child over and over, while I stood, helpless in the mist, my feet held fast, my body pulled back, and while behind me, though I could not see, only sense her dark presence, hovered the woman.'

Thoughts
I quite enjoyed this quick little read and am glad I finally got around to reading it. I love ghost stories even though I tend to scare quite easily... and this book was no exception. The writing was beautiful and vividly creepy and definitely manages to get under your skin even though the real scary parts don't even start till the latter half of the book. The descriptions were spot on and the whole book is simply eerie even though, in thinking back to it, nothing real huge actually happens. The ghost doesn't come alive and smother him in his sleep or glue the windows shut or anything absurd like that. Nevertheless I was frightened enough to have to ask my boyfriend to walk upstairs with me to our darkened bedroom after I was finished. He still makes fun of me for that.

Enjoying it as much as I did, I still didn't give it 5 stars and the only reason for that was because of the ending. It left a bit to be desired for me and was a bit too abrupt for my liking.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Subtlety of Terror -Lyrically Beautiful Prose January 10, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
From the first page of this exciting novel I am reminded of the pleasure of reading good literature, of the sensory acclaim of a Charles Dickens or a Henry James. I relaxed into the narrative knowing I should be on edge, expecting the subsequent horrors, but Ms. Hill's writing is simply so superb that relaxing quickly became the order of the day. What a pleasure, also, to encounter a protagonist who suffers from a form of Seasonal Affective Disorder, which he acknowledges but of course has no way of putting a title to it.

I am so enjoying this book-similar to Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood, even to Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, the terror creeps up on us subtly, with silent little cat feet, and we don't know at first it is all around us until we look into the eyes of others, read their expressions, listen to the fluttering in their voices.

But before very long there is a shift of consciousness, subtly yes, even unpredictably, until we find ourselves standing on solid ground just as flimsy as that of Eel Marsh, to which our protagonist, at first a simple and ordinary solicitor in London, repairs on an errand set him by his employer. Out there not only is the weather unpredictable and the tides unalterable, but reality is shifting and mutable-and frightening. Nothing is what it seems-and what seems to be is-terrifying.

The Woman in Black is a novel both to be savoured, for its beauty and poignancy, but also to be raced through, as our hearts' rate speeds up in companionship with the narrator, and his ever-intensifying fear and uncertainty. Altogether a wonderful novel-to read and reread and ponder and enjoy.

The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story (Vintage)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best
Rather boring. It doesn't stand the test of time. I didn't want gruesome but I did want exciting and this wasn't.
Published 1 month ago by Rebekah White
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book
Nice scary story about the possibilities of ghosts continuing their misery for more any years. Understand why the movie didn't do so well,too short of tale for hour and half.
Published 1 month ago by Sally Fuller
4.0 out of 5 stars Good story
I enjoyed this book. Creepy,
damp and well written. A good read. I would recommend to ghost lovers any where.
Published 1 month ago by wendy jadczak
3.0 out of 5 stars Predictable
It was an easy read. Younger fans may like it and find it a bit scary. Guess I've read and seen scarier.
Published 1 month ago by Sylvia Jones
2.0 out of 5 stars The Woman In Black
This book just wasn't what I was expecting. I had the plot figured out about 1/4 of the way through the book. Maybe one spine tingling moment. Read more
Published 1 month ago by A. Walker
5.0 out of 5 stars Great follow-up to movie
Loved the movie and also the book! I am a fan of Daniel Radcliffe, so this was a great treat!
Published 1 month ago by Windsor
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Well, these reviews are 'way off' as so many of them have enticed me to buy books that are rated as very good, and then I am disappointed. But then again it may be just me. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Frankie J. Greer
3.0 out of 5 stars Not quite as chilling as some other ghost stories I have read
Not quite as chilling as some other ghost stories I have read. It's a quick read, however. Give it a try.
Published 2 months ago by Dovina Laurence
2.0 out of 5 stars Boring
Don't bother..it's not scary...the writing style is hesitant, it was a waste of my time. I haven't seen the movie, not likely to.
Published 2 months ago by sandra callahan
4.0 out of 5 stars Ghosts, good and Gothic.
Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black" gripped me from the beginning as I could empathise with the young solicitor, Arthur Kripps, who has to travel out to a misty and murky... Read more
Published 2 months ago by R Nickford
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