I’d never heard of Susan Hill until Andrea, Clare’s boss, told me about Hill’s book Howard’s End is on the Landing ((which I am still reading)) when I told her I really should not buy any books from her wonderful bookshop and concentrate on the books I already owned. Of course I bought the book in her hand. How could I not?

I started reading Howards End is on the Landing right away and my first thought was, what an insufferable book snob (the author, not Andrea). I’d never read her work and here she is going on and on about fancy-pants books unlike the kind I like to read. It wasn’t until her chapter on ghost stories that I began to take more notice (although I did buy a book she mentioned in an earlier chapter) and when she mentioned that she’d written a ghost story I looked it up and realized I’d heard of it: The Woman in Black.

The book was available as an ebook at the library so I promptly downloaded it and hesitantly began reading it after reading some reviews stating it was the scariest book some reviewers had ever read.

It was pretty good — a well-written, gothic ghost story, not unlike The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (ohhhh! I see that’s being made into a movie!) which I adored. I didn’t find The Woman in Black very scary at all.

As soon as I finished the book I watched the movie starring Daniel Radcliffe. Very different from the book, completely different ending. I didn’t like the movie very much at all.