Changes

The writing is never going to win a Booker, but that's not important – it will work and force you to sit with your back to the wall. It's not flawless – the tides on the causeway over to the House are very conveniently absent when people need to use it, and the 'you thought we'd stop at two??!!' ending is a bum note. Before then we have a very sensitive and sensible evocation of the horrors of the War, the return of a genre classic given a fresh-blood revivification, in both senses, and an albeit lower-brow but no less effective chiller. This is the first return to the best haunted house of the last thirty years, and it's a very welcome and enjoyable ride.

This is another great title in the burgeoning Hammer library - and with books such as [[The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson]] elsewhere, we're smitten. But we're also wondering when people will latch on to other Susan Hill horrors, such as [[Dolly by Susan Hill|Dolly]] or [[The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill|The Man in the Picture]].