Henry James described the inclusion of children in a ghost story as adding another turn of the psychological screw. It's a technique Susan Hill (The Woman in Black) has often used to great effect, most recently in two short novels, The Small Hand and Dolly, published in the U.K. in 2010 and 2012. These gothic ghost stories are aptly paired for their American publication, as they both explore the dark, intensified emotions of childhood.
In The Small Hand, rare book dealer Adam Snow stumbles upon a ruined Edwardian house and abandoned garden, in which he encounters the lonely and persistent spirit of a drowned boy, intent on claiming a victim of its own. Meanwhile, in Dolly, orphaned Edward Cayley is sent along with his malicious and willful cousin Leonora to spend the summer at Iyot House, the gloomy and crumbling home of a childless relative. In a rage, Leonora destroys a china doll; decades later, that mistreatment is mercilessly visited back upon the next generation.
Hill doesn't overextend herself in areas of characterization or plot. Her characters are serviceable and any internal logic driving her stories forward is cloaked in a hazy mist of intensified sensation--which seems to be the point. Ominous settings and disturbing behavior are presented with the keen intensity of a child's imagination: visceral, acute and operating on a level beyond adult reason. Fans of gothic horror will devour these unrestrainedly atmospheric stories... but they might want to leave the light on. --Judie Evans, librarian