The Little Stranger

By: Sarah Waters

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

A chilling and vividly rendered ghost story set in postwar Britain, by the best-selling and award-winning author of The Night Watch and Fingersmith.

Sarah Waters's trilogy of Victorian novels Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and Fingersmith earned her legions of fans around the world, a number of awards, and a reputation as one of today's most gifted historical novelists. With her most recent book, The Night Watch, Waters turned to the 1940s and delivered a tender and intricate novel of relationships that brought her the greatest success she has achieved so far.

With The Little Stranger, Waters revisits the fertile setting of Britain in the 1940s - and gives us a sinister tale of a haunted house, brimming with the rich atmosphere and psychological complexity that have become hallmarks of Waters's work.

The Little Stranger follows the strange adventures of Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline - its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at 20 to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

Abundantly atmospheric and elegantly told, The Little Stranger is Sarah Waters's most thrilling and ambitious novel yet.

©2009 Sarah Waters (P)2009 Penguin

Critic reviews

"Waters has boldly reassigned all these gothic motifs [of the traditional ghost story] from their usual Freudian duties to another detail entirely: The Little Stranger is about class, and the unavoidable yet lamentable price paid when venerable social hierarchies begin to erode. … Waters has managed to write a near-perfect gothic novel while at the same time confidently deploying the form into fresher territory." (Salon.com)
"[A] marvelous and truly spooky historical novel. … As a strange spot on an old and mouldering ceiling takes on a sinister appearance and bodies begin to accumulate, Waters’s precise and chilling prose lets Dr. Faraday have his way with the story." ( Boston Globe)
"Waters (The Night Watch) reflects on the collapse of the British class system after WWII in a stunning haunted house tale whose ghosts are as horrifying as any in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House....Faraday, one of literature's more unreliable narrators, carries the reader swiftly along to the devastating conclusion." ( Publishers Weekly)

Prepare for a haunt

Thought it was very well presented and narration was great ! You will be haunted and won't be able to stop listening or reading Highly recommend!

Should take its place among the classics

Truly good ghost stories raise the hair on the back of one's neck not by overt violence, but by hint and innuendo.
The Little Stranger is one of the best. it's right up there with Daphne DuMaurier's My Cousin Rachel and Rebecca and with Henry James' The Turn of the Screw.
Sarah Waters is a fine writer. Her language, her character development, her ability to set scene and atmosphere and to allow suspense to grow slowly set her among the best writing in the genre.
And Simon Vance is, well, Simon Vance. His touch, his narration is so light and understated that it showcases this gem of a story without ever calling attention to itself.
I will be selecting another Sarah Waters book soon. But first I'll have to decompress with something a little lighter.

Sarah Waters is quite the talented author.

Sarah Waters is very capable of painting such a vivid picture, you can almost watch her books instead of read them. Simon Vance tells the story in such a way that you are instantly transported to another time. Sarah and Simon are quite the winning combination!

Suprisingly engaging

I found myself drawn into this book more than I had anticipated. I enjoyed the depth of the characters. This is definately not a formula story and doesnt follow a set pattern where every trail leads to the predictable end.

Great story, easy listen

I had thought the book would have had a bit more spook and paranormal atmosphere but overall, still a great listen. The narrator has very pleasant voice, character development was well done, and the story was easy to follow and rather interesting.

Excellent in every way, from story to narration!

Gorgeous, restrained writing with a literary bent, and for me, up there with Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca with shades of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. But, I thought this novel more complex taking on wider themes. Here, the milieu of England transitioning into modern society after WWII. It received Hilary Mantel's high praise in her review in The Guardian. Narrator, Simon Vance, is a perfect choice.

A perfect read

I marvel at the talent of the writer; her storytelling skills are top notch. She invokes a flawless Victorian setting and the characters are unique and complicated, the book reveals a succession of small glimpses into the nature of each of them but never gives the whole thing away. The real art though is in using the suggestion of a phantasmic presence to create fear. It’s a ghost story, a love story and woven in are allusions to class distinction and nods to historical and cultural major events. Highly recommend this book.

First, pour yourself a mug of hot tea or cocoa

A leisurely pleasant start to this book, for me the equivalent of turning on the TV and seeing the opening credits of a black-and-white movie made in Britain circa WWII: an old manor house looms into view, cut to interior, a young woman looking out the window as rain pelts the glass. BTW, this is not a scene from the book or from any particular movie. It's meant more to describe the feelings such a beginning evokes in me. From the first words (read wonderfully by Simon Vance), I wanted to brew a pot of tea and butter some toast before retreating to an overstuffed chair in front of a glowing fireplace to enjoy this subtly eerie tale.

The first four chapters held my interest well. By the end of the fifth chapter I was suitably chilled to the point that I required the company of two small dogs: I just couldn't be alone at this point. That night, as I lay in bed listening, I had to add a "magic blanket" to the mix. (You know, the type of blanket that prevents unseen hands from grabbing your feet or lightly running a finger up your spine.)

Sarah Waters' prose, her exacting choice of words, has an understated charm, nothing flashy that distracted me as I listened. If you like books/movies such as 'The Uninvited' or 'Rebecca,' you will not be disappointed by 'The Little Stranger.'

Nothing to Rave About

This is the first novel by Sarah Waters that I've read or listened to, although I've seen several in dramatizations. People had raved to me about her work, but if this novel is typical, I'm not greatly impressed. It's a fairly routine gothic novel--decaying mansion, mysterious noises, strange messages, people going bonkers. Waters does dig into her characters' psychological depths and offers up some commentary on social class. Simon Vance's narration, as always, was admirable.

Best first story...

it's the best ghost story I've ever come across. also an amazing job by Vance.