The Little Stranger

Ron CharlesSarah Waters ain't afraid of no ghost. Her new novel, a deliciously creepy tale called The Little Stranger, is haunted by the spirits of Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe. Waters is just one turn of the screw away from The Fall of the House of Usher…What saves The Little Stranger from sinking into a fetid swamp of cliche is the author's restraint, her ability, like James's, to excite our imagination through subtle suggestion alone. The supernatural creaks and groans that reverberate through this tale are accompanied by malignant strains of class envy and sexual repression that infect every perfectly reasonable explanation we hear. The result is a ghost story as intelligent as it is stylish.
—The Washington Post




Scarlett ThomasSarah Waters is an excellent, evocative writer, and this is an incredibly gripping and readable novel.