| The Little Stranger |  | Author: Sarah Waters
Publisher: Riverhead
Category: eBooks
In Stock
Rating:  146 reviews
Sales Rank: 3,411
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 480
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
Publication Date: March 31, 2009
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Product Description
The New York Times bestseller and Booker Prize contender that "delivers...a ghost story that creeps up your spine" (Seattle Times).
One post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline. Its owners-mother, son, and daughter-are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. 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 intimately entwined with his.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 146
 Gave Me Shivers September 8, 2010
Rather Be Reading (The O.C.)
I loved this book. It wasn't perfect, but what a great ghost/mystery story. My only complaint is that it takes until about page 100 for the weird stuff to start happening. But once it does, you will not be able to put this book down. And it got downright spooky. Sarah Waters is a wonderful writer. Her descriptions are first rate. And what a wonderful mystery. This is a book I'll think about long after I've finished it. I'd like to say more, but don't want to give anything away.
 Faraday September 2, 2010
Ravel (Montréal, Québec Canada)
(I'm almost at the end of the book, and I wish not to spoil my review of it by knowing the end. However, there is so many reviews here that I'll simply add a few notes of my own...).
Faraday. Oh, Faraday! Even if you were the narrator and then, just one character among the principal characters, I came to despise you. (credit to the author of this marvelous well written book). Somehow, all that happens is part of your fault. You are in post-War, post-Victorian England and you act like the worst blind scientist ever. Never, ever heard of spiritualism? It was quite the rage a few years ago. You could at least have taken some of the hints among all the things happening at Hundreds. (at that, I add that for a strong-minded woman, Caroline is not very good at convincing you of the supernatural stuff happenings to her and her family -- Waters made her a bit too feeble there and not quite believable).
Sarah Waters: was it intentional to make a paraphrase - much bigger - of Henry James' Turn of the Screw?
Don't take me wrong: I adore this book. I was wondering when I could read something as strong and well written as DuMaurier's Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel. Incredible!
But Faraday is making me very mad. He's choosing to be blind and I'm mad at him to finally be so stupid and mentally so undernourished.
Now, I go the read the end of it.
 FALSE ADVERTISING August 25, 2010
red read
Did I read the same book as the reviews above? The novel was advertised as a "ghost story", and in my experience it was anything but! The two stars are a tribute to how well the book was written, and how intricately it was thought out. That being said, I went in to this story, expecting thrills, scares, and excitement because that's how it was advertised. The quote on the front cover is by Stephen King - "The #1 book of 2009...several sleepless nights are guaranteed." Really? I could hardly stay awake! What I read was a dramatic narrative involving a family in post-war Britain desperately trying to keep their crumbling estate alive. They cross paths with the narrator, a doctor, who after one house call and a childhood memory, becomes obsessed with trying to help the estate survive. Ghosts? Oh yeah, a few bumps in the night, a couple burn marks in the ceiling, a dog bit a little girl... come on! The parts that had anything remotely related to ghosts or hauntings probably added up to about 20 pages... out of 500! The only reason I finished the book was because I kept thinking surely something scary will happen. It didn't.
Please note that I am in no way discrediting this talented writer. Like I said before, the book was very well written. But a ghost story this was most definitely not. Might as well have said it was a war story because WWII was mentioned, or a medical story because the main character was a doctor. Call it what it is, a DRAMA, about love, relationships, and family. FALSE ADVERTISING!
way too long... August 23, 2010
L. Walker
This book would have benefited from a good editing. The story is barely interesting, so about 300 pages less probably would have made it at least a quick somewhat enjoyable read. The story of a wealthy English family fallen on hard times after the second world war then haunted and driven mad by their old falling apart manor house at first seemed a workable plot, but it never really pans out mainly because the author takes so long to describe everything...but nothing she takes so long to describe is even interesting enough to deserve the words used.
House calls August 22, 2010
Linda (CT, United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Little Stranger is a deliciously creepy tale in which the star is a house, a grand but decrepit country estate in Warwickshire, England. The year is 1947, and in the aftermath of WWII, all of the English, rich and poor alike, are suffering through what today we like to call tough economic times. The story begins with a house call made by Dr. Faraday to Hundreds, the seat of the Ayres family for 200 years. The doctor, now middle aged, has misty memories of visiting Hundreds as a child with his mother, former nanny to the Ayres children, now all grown up and struggling desperately to hang on to their heritage. They befriend Faraday, to as close an extent as is possible between the upper and lower classes.
Little by little, strange little incidents are noticed, such as sooty smudges and childish graffiti appearing on the walls. Rod Ayres, the heir to the estate, begins to experience frightening, seemingly paranormal visions. Tapping, whistling, and whispering sounds are noted by the family, and Mrs. Ayres feels certain that her long dead little daughter is trying to communicate with her. The family turns to Faraday for help, but he is a modern man of science, and refuses to fall prey to the fanciful fears of the Ayreses. Along the way, he inexplicably falls in love with Caroline, Rod's sister.
Author Waters artfully beguiles her readers into entering a sort of gothic puzzle, where things may or may not be what they seem. How much of a role does the psychology of the family, now destitute after centuries of comfort, play in the manifestations that plague them? How much of a role does it play in the choices made by Dr. Faraday, who desperately wants to make his mark in the world, and rise above his family origins? The final paragraph in this fable is devastating, and I'm still not sure how to answer those questions, nor have I made up my mind about the "little stranger" who plays the malevolent tricks. But I do know that The Little Stranger is a hauntingly good story.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 146
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