
The Little Stranger (Paperback)
Sarah Waters (author)Published: 05/01/2010

An expertly crafted ghost story from one of the twenty-first century’s most gifted writers, The Little Stranger’s chills may be elegant and exquisite, but they are still mighty scary. A crumbling Georgian pad and a family with sinister secrets to hide lend this eerie narrative a slowly escalating sense of creeping dread.
Now a major motion picture starring Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter and Charlotte Rampling.
'Sarah Waters's masterly novel is... gripping, confident, unnerving and supremely entertaining' - Hilary Mantel
In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall.
Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, its owners - mother, son and daughter - struggling to keep pace.
But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN: 9781844086061
Number of pages: 512
Weight: 400 g
Dimensions: 196 x 126 x 38 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'It's a gripping story, with beguiling characters ... As well as being a supernatural tale, it is a meditation on the nature of the British and class, and how things are rarely what they seem. Chilling'- Kate Mosse, The Times
'Waters writes with a firm, confident hand, deftly building an atmosphere that begins in a still, hot summer and gradually darkens and tightens until we are as gripped by the escalating horror as the Ayres are. She is particularly good at depicting Hundreds, the dilapidated Georgian pile that dazzles ... Waters' persistent picking apart of class is fascinating' - Tracy Chevalier, The Observer
'By now readers must be confident of her mastery of storytelling ... While at one turn, the novel looks to be a ghost story, the next it is a psychological drama ... But it is also a brilliantly observed story, verging on the comedy, about Britain on the cusp of modern age ... The writing is subtle and poised' Joy lo Dico, Independent on Sunday
'Displaying her remarkable flair for period evocation, Waters recreates backwater Britain just after the Second World War with atmospheric immediacy ... Acute and absorbing' - Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times
'Waters is often described as a brilliant storyteller, and so she is. But she is also an artist compelled to experiment ... Waters gives herself a sort of handicap with the dull doctor's narration. This indirectness, which in cruder hands might have led to yawning insurrection in the reader, becomes essential to the novels unsettling power' - Claudia Fitzherbert, The Daily Telegraph
'It would be unfair to reveal very much about The Little Stranger: enough to say that this reader, left alone one night in her boxy Seventies ex-council house, about as unspooky a place as you can image, had to stop reading for fright. This is an effective, gripping book. Sarah Waters' ability to evoke the 1940s shows the same mastery she displaying in The Night Watch, and her descriptive powers are nearly unparalleled ... Waters has sat herself down in front of a roaring fire and determined to scare the pants off her rightly devoted audience. In that she succeeds unequivocally. You'll want to sleep with the light on' - Erica Wagner, The Times
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“Atmospheric and chilling”
The Little Stranger is a ghost story, but it isn't the kind of story that goes 'boo!' or frightens you with jump scares, it's psychological. So psychological, in fact, that it isn't always... More
“A little disappointing......”
Yes, it is worth reading, but a little disappointing. I was glad to reach the end.
“The Little Stranger”
This is a book that subtly weaves its way into your daily life and completely subverts your sense of grounding with a beautifully crafted ending. I started off not being too sure and wondering where she was going but... More
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