Annotation # 2- The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

Pull up a chair, the owl is in.

Actually the owl should be hiding under the covers because this genre annotation is all about horror, which is a tale where nightmares and monsters come to life to evoke fear and unease from the reader (and possibly sleeping with the lights on!!!)

About the Owl and Horrors- I actually do read horrors, but usually during the fall and mainly YA and children's. ( Yes, children's does have some horror books. Mary Downing Hahn, author of Wait till Helen Comes, is perhaps the best in horror and ghost stories, but there is also the popular R.L. Stine series from the 90s', Goosebumps.) I've read very little adult horror and figure working with a classic might be less bloody and gory. Searching  Goodreads for horror classics besides Dracula and anything Stephen King, I chose....

Title: The Woman in Black

Author: Susan Hill

Genre: Horror/Gothic-Historical

Publication Date: First published October 10, 1983 ( Recent Publication: January 2012

Number of Pages:164

Geographical Setting: England

Time Frame: Victorian Period
Topics: Haunted Houses, Ghosts,  Revenge, Secrets

Characteristics of Horror ( as Featured in This Book)

•  Author uses language in adjectives and descriptions to set the dark and gloom of the story. In Hill's England, the weather is always cloudy or foggy, never a bright sun in the sky.
• Hints of gloom and menace  are featured throughout the story to evoke the reader's response.Hill slowly builds to greater horrific events in the last chapters of the book (including  a very gruesome ending.) Strange occurrences include a child's cries in the marshes, a ghostly pony and cart, and a woman described as having a pale, wasted face and dressed in all black.
• Brave and  a non-believer of ghosts, the events at Eel Marsh House shatter Arthur Kipps and continue to haunt him years later.
• Just when it seems the ghost of the woman in black is gone, she extracts revenge on Kipp's first wife and child. The memory of this last act haunts him years later when he is older and remarried (also during Christmas as his stepchildren tell ghost stories.)

Plot Summary: As his stepchildren gather round the fire and tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve, Arthur Kipps is haunted by memories of the past. At the start of his legal career, he was  sent to a small remote town to  settle the finances of the late Mrs. Alice Drablow. During his trip, strange and horrific occurrences happen, including an encounter with a  ghostly woman all dressed in black. 

My Take: This was a pleasant little horror book ( I know, "pleasant" and " horror" don't seem right together, but for this, they do.) It had the right amount of old fashioned creepiness (and because there is hardly any sex or foul language, I'm thinking it might be okay for a child age 12 and up. They might need use the Internet to look up any unfamiliar terms. I had no idea what a "pony and trap" was until I looked up and saw it was just a pony and cart.)  I actually think the book ends better than the 2012 film adaptation with Daniel Radcliffe ( saw it was  previously adapted to film in 1989 and is also a long running play at the Fortune Theater in London.) Obviously for folks that expect a lot of blood and death every ten pages would not like this book, for folks that want a pleasant scare, it's worth a read.

Read-a- Likes ( From Novelist)

• Turn of the Screw by Henry James- Another horror classic set in Victorian England where frame of story and first person narration slowly build to nightmares and chills
• Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James-  Set in the 1920s Sarah Piper is sent out to a small remote English town to help a ghost hunter investigate the mystery of Maddy Clare. ( I've read this and it's quite good.)
• The Ghost Writer by John Haywood- Australian Gothic/suspense story in which a man because obsessed with a centuries old manuscript from his grandma.

I'm also recommending All the Bad Ones, Wait Till Helen Comes  and The Old Willis Place by Mary Downing Hahn and Haunting of Hill House  by Shirley Jackson.

I'll probably still read horror for the teen and juvenile audience (and still during the fall, but with the winter we're having, seems perfect.) In reading about the genre in the text, I'd be willing to try  Clive Barker (especially Mister B. Gone, sounds funny) Stephen King ( when I know I'll have more time than a few weeks), Dean Koontz ( particularly the Odd Thomas books) and King's  son, Joe Hill ( especially since Horns is being turned into a movie with.. Daniel Radcliffe).

Next time's annotation is science fiction. Oh........ oh.... ugghhhhhhhhhhh.!!!