ISBN: 978-0099511649
Published By Vintage Classics
Ghost stories were a part of a traditional Victorian Christmas and so I thought I would include on in my advent reading list.
This is the book upon which the famous (and utterly terrifying) stage play is based. Arthur Kipps, a solicitor, is sent to a small town in the East of England to see to the final affairs of Alice Drablow. Mrs Drablow lived in a remote house at the end of Nine Lives Causeway which is cut off by the sea at high tide.
As Arthur tries to discover more about his deceased client, the more he finds the locals will not talk, nor will they go anywhere near the house. He doesn’t take heed of their thinly veiled warnings and decides to spend a few nights in the house to sort out Mrs Drablow’s papers. As the title of the book suggests, he starts to see the mysterious woman in black, and eventually finds out who she is and what happened to her.
The brilliance of this book is the way the tension is built. Very little is said which is obviously frightening, but the way the woman influences Arthur’s mind and thought process is chilling. This is a proper, one hundred percent scare the living daylights out of you, give you the creeps for weeks afterwards ghost story. Go on, read it. I dare you.
Feed Your Book Addiction 