I've been reading this on and off since September, because it was hardback it's been too unweildy to take on rush hour on the tube and so I've been reading it at home occasionally, I say occasionally because it didn't really grab me. I devoured 'The Night Watch', couldn't put it down so was really looking forward to reading 'The Little Stranger' but it just dissapointed me, it seemed very in tune with the era it was set, and read rather like a Nevile Shute novel; formal and detached. I also just felt for what was sold as a ghost story there wasn't much ghosting or explanation, I know things in real life go unexplained but I do like an explanation espcially after reading a very long book. In summary it just left me a bit flat when I came to the end. ( )

A young doctor befriends the aristocratic family in the town where his practice is located. Eventually he and the daughter fall in love, but all the while the manor house is being "haunted" by something strange...and no one can seem to fully understand what is happening. Tragedy eventually engulfs everyone...but why? An atmospheric read which leaves you wondering. ( )

A very creepy book that poses as a pseudobiography. You think you are getting one thing, a glimpse into someone's life story, when it is really quite another that brings up unsettling questions. A book to be pondered over on a dark, rainy night. Definitely recommended. ( )

Buying & reading the latest novel by the wonderful Sarah Waters was a no-brainer. I have enjoyed her previous novels, in particular Fingersmith. No, wait, Affinity. No, wait, Tipping the Velvet was the best. Maybe. Too hard to decide!

This is the second of her novels to be set not in Victorian era, but in England in the period after the Second World War. Dr Faraday is a village doctor, barely keeping his head above water, when he gets summoned to visit a patient at Hundreds Hall, a grand Georgian house, whose inhabitants can barely keep it going. The Ayres family are being left behind by a changing society that no longer seems to have time for the old families of England.

And in the atmospheric gloom of the run-down old house, imagination starts running wild...

The writing is wonderful, the atmosphere of hot summer days filled with tension was wonderfully created; the character of Dr Faraday caught between the old world and the new was good, even if sometimes you wanted to slap some sense into him; and quite a bit of the plot was left ambiguous which I rather liked.

But overall this was a slightly disappointing book. After the richness of her previous books, with immense detail and spiffing plots and quirky characters, this is a much slower work, more involved in the psychology of the characters. At times the spookiness sent real shivers down my spine, but on the whole it was all a bit too distant, not really immediate, and I didn't care enough about any of the characters to be completely involved. And the ambiguity towards the end was just a bit too ambiguous - was I just imagining it could have happened the way I thought? Was I reading far too much between the lines?

From a different author, I would have loved this. But from Sarah Waters, it was almost a miss rather than a hit. It just lacked the oomph that I've grown to expect from her novels. ( )

The Little Stranger, a new novel by well-known British author Sarah Waters, examines the great social upheaval in England during the years immediately following World War II through the perspective of a once-grand family as that perspective is narrated by the family’s local doctor, Dr. Faraday. Mrs. Ayers and her two adult, unmarried children, Caroline and Roderick, are the last remnants of the Ayres family living in crumbling Hundreds Hall on an unkempt estate in rural England. Dr. Faraday, who comes from humble origins, befriends the family after a house call to treat an ailing servant. It’s a friendship that never would have formed in the pre-war era of strict social hierarchies, and Dr. Faraday takes great pride in his association with the high-class Ayers.

Beginning with an inexplicable dog attack, a number of strange occurrences in the Hall suggest a supernatural presence. Though the occurrences become ever more violent, it remains unclear whether the ghostly presence is real or merely a figment of the family’s over-stressed imagination. Things become increasingly desperate, and the Ayers family, one by one, succumbs to the force—whether supernatural, socioeconomic, or imagined—that seems determined to break them. Through it all, Dr. Faraday is the steady voice of rationality, at first a welcome respite but becoming more and more ominous over time.

The gradual mental and financial collapse of the Ayers family parallels the disintegration of the British class system, and this interplay results in a rich story with many layers of meaning. The supernatural elements avoid cliché by their ambiguity. Is Dr. Faraday correct that there’s a rational explanation for everything? Or is Roderick right that an unseen malevolent force is threatening the family? Waters masterfully maintains this delicate ambiguity to the chilling and dramatic end. The Little Stranger is a quick-paced psychological thriller nested within an insightful social commentary. The combination is thrilling and intelligent.

This review also appears on my blog Literary License. ( )