The Small Hand and Dolly

by Susan Hill

Two chilling ghost stories from the author of The Woman in Black, both set in crumbling English houses that are haunted by the spirits of thwarted children. A VINTAGE TRADE PAPER ORIGINAL.

In The Small Hand, antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow is returning from a client visit when he takes a wrong turn and stumbles across a derelict Edwardian house with a lush, overgrown garden. Approaching the door, he is startled to feel the unmistakable sensation of a small cold hand creeping into his own, almost as though a child had taken hold of it. Plagued by nightmares, he returns with the intention of figuring out its mysteries, only to be troubled by further, increasingly sinister visits. In Dolly, orphan Edward Cayley is sent to spend the summer with his forbidding Aunt Kestrel at Iyot House, her decaying home in the damp, lonely fens. With him is his spoiled, spiteful cousin, Leonora. And when Leonora's birthday wish for a beautiful doll is denied, she unleashes a furious rage which will haunt Edward for years afterward.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, Paranormal, Gothic, Mystery, Ghost Stories

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1942. Her hometown was later referred to in her novel A Change for the Better (1969) and some short stories especially "Cockles and Mussels".

She attended Scarborough Convent School, where she became interested in theatre and literature. Her family left Scarborough in 1958 and moved to Coventry where her father worked in car and aircraft factories. Hill states that she attended a girls’ grammar school, Barr's Hill. Her fellow pupils included Jennifer Page, the first Chief Executive of the Millennium Dome. At Barrs Hill she took A levels in English, French, History and Latin, proceeding to an English degree at King's College London. By this time she had already written her first novel, The Enclosure which was published by Hutchinson in her first year at university. The novel was criticised by The Daily Mail for its sexual content, with the suggestion that writing in this style was unsuitable for a "schoolgirl".

Her next novel Gentleman and Ladies was published in 1968. This was followed in quick succession by A Change for the Better, I'm the King of the Castle, The Albatross and other stories, Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, A Bit of Singing and Dancing and In the Springtime of Year, all written and published between 1968 and 1974.

In 1975 she married Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells and they moved to Stratford upon Avon. Their first daughter, Jessica, was born in 1977 and their second daughter, Clemency, was born in 1985. Hill has recently founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, which has published one work of fiction per year.

Librarian's Note: There is more than one author by this name.

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I requested this from NetGalley based on two things:
1) The fact that I really enjoyed The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
2) That cover. So deliciously creepy.

And I really enjoyed these two stories, despite reading them in snippets and bite size pieces over the course of forever.

I loved the creeping foreboding feeling of these stories. I loved the way that the everyday life went on around these... phenomena, and that lent even more eeriness to it.

The second story was by far my favorite, though I really liked both of them. Dolly was just scarier to me, (I think if I had to name one irrational 'fear', it would be creepy dolls), and I loved it for that.

I also really liked the layered qualities of these stories. Honestly, neither story was what it seemed, and both involve the ghosts of our own lives - though sometimes we don't know it, or refuse to.

I think if I had any complaint, it's that Dolly's ending seemed off. Not in the ending itself, which was great, but just the abruptness of it. The story carried on past what could have been great endings, and then I expected it to carry on past further than it did. It took me by surprise when it ended, and not really in the best way. I wanted just a little more.

Very good novellas, and highly recommended, despite that, though.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Hill is a master of building anticipation until it becomes unbearable. I love it. It's a slow burn, subtle at first, but the tension tugs you along until you can't look away, even if you desperately want to, so you keep turning pages until...



That was me finishing "Dolly" last night. Doll stories always scare the hell out of me. The ending, while jarring, didn't quite work for me. And I'm generally okay with that -- I don't expect perfect endings with horror. (They are few and far between.) But after such exquisite suspense, I admit I was a little disappointed after the "AAAAUGH" feeling wore off.

"The Small Hand" was closer to perfect in that regard. There was a bit of the story that made me say, "Wait, huh?" the timing of the hand leaving him, which might seem smoother in rereading, but that ending. Oh. My god. Perfection. Completely creeped me out.

[Mauoijenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are by far two of the most chilling ghost stories I have read together in a long time. I'm so glad Amazon suggested it and that my local library had a copy, so I could get my hot hands on it. If you read this and DON'T get the chills/goosebumps then something is wrong with you. Just sayin'.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somehow I ended up liking this one way more than I anticipated, primarily on the strength of the second story, after all one can't go wrong with creepy dolls. The first tale was just ok, something about modern Victorian fiction just doesn't work for me, you can't just have all that gloomy atmosphere with modern technology, it's just too jarring of a juxtaposition stylistically. And so it's a decent haunted story about a book dealer haunted by a small child with...yes, small hands. The second story, though, is much stronger, about two very different cousins tangentially connected through an aunt whose house they once summered in...with dolls. It's appropriately atmospheric, nicer paced and has a more engaging protagonist. At times it's positively eerie and in general is much more in tune with its Victorian style. Pretty entertaining quick read, perfect for a bleak rainy day and fans of subtle scary stories.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Old houses, overrun gardens, spectral children

I loved these novellas and with Halloween around the corner it was a great time to read them. So many ghost stories are wonderful in the development section but the endings fall short. Not so with these. They're both about children. They're both sad and necessarily tragic. As always with Hill they're atmospheric. She's magic in this aspect. As she so often does her main characters in both stories are male. They both exude tenderness and sensitivity while still being masculine. She does this combination so well and helping to make the story unexpected as well as believable. The parts about ghosts build slowly adding to the plausibility. The time is unspecified so it could be yesterday or a hundred years ago.

The first story, not surprisingly, starts at an old overrun house when the narrator becomes lost while traveling. Hoping to get directions from anyone in the house he's startled to feel a small child's hand clasp his own but when he looks down there's no one there. The second story is about two orphaned or deserted cousins, a boy and a girl, who come together for one season at an aunt's isolated house. They have some unsettling adventures and subsequently have a profound impact on one another's future lives. There are no better ghost story writers today than Susan Hill.

This review is based on an advance reader's copy provided by the publisher.
(Disclaimer given as required by the FTC.)

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Small Hand is a touch slow, but it is a slightly different version of a ghost story, and after the slow beginning, it gets quite interesting.. The haunted gardens reminded me of Shirley Jackson's The Sundial. The second short novel, Dolly, is a very entertaining gothic style psycho horror tale.

[Luanne Ollivier · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's better than a ghost story? Two ghost stories! And that's what Susan Hill gives us in The Small Hand and Dolly. I love the cover -the doll's eye is unsettling and just set the tone for what awaits the reader.

I've fallen in love with Hill's Simon Serrailler detective series, but it was only on looking at the author's website that I realized she was the author of The Woman in Black - a classic ghost tale that has been made into a stage play (opened in 1989 and is still running) as well as a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Hill writes the most delicious stories - atmospheric with slow building tension that increases with every page turned. And all accomplished without overt gore and violence. Just wonderfully wrought words.

In The Small Hand, a rare book seller is on a way to a client's home when he takes a wrong turn - and discovers an abandoned house. "I should have gone back then. I needed to be in London and I had already lost my way. Clearly the house was deserted and possibly derelict. I would not find anyone her to give me directions." But he explores a litter further and finds that the house once housed a spectacular garden. It is while standing in the ruins that "I felt a small hand creep into my right one, as if a child had come up beside me in the dimness and take hold of it."

That wrong turn haunts him in more ways than one - he now feels compelled to throw himself into water, knowing that he will drown. And this in turn drives him back to house....

"What would I find? I did not know and I tried not to give my imagination any rein. I would obey the insistent, silent voice that told me I must go back and once there I would see. I would see."

Delicious!

In Dolly, Edward revisits the home of his now deceased aunt. He spent a summer there as a child, along with his cousin Leonora, a spoiled girl subject to fits of anger. In the forty years following that summer, he never returned. Until now. In present day, in the empty house, he hears a sound that brings back memories from that summer....memories of Leonora's wish for a dolly and her anger when it wasn't the right one.

"The cupboard. It was something about the cupboard, something in it or that had happened beside it? I shook myself, and was about to close the cupboard door when I heard it - a very soft rustling, as if someone were stirring their hand about in crisp tissue paper, perhaps as they unpacked a parcel."

Dolly's tension builds as well, but in a different way. This time there's a more tangible scary thing - the inanimate doll. (I'm not a doll fan - they give me the creeps) You could even say this story dipped it's toe in the horror pool. Lots of foreshadowing leads the way to the final chapter. I was slightly disappointed with the ending of this story - I thought one character did not deserve their ending.

But with both stories, I enjoyed the slow build, the weaving of possibilities and the gothic ghost flavour.

Of the two, I preferred The Small Hand. But, both are perfect one sitting with a cup of tea before you head to bed reading. Who knows what your dreams will conjure up? Or what that rustling under the bed might really be......

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Small Hand and Dolly are two novella ghost stories from Susan Hill. This book is a Random House publication. This is a September 2013 release. I received a copy of this book from the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

The first story is about a rare and antique book dealer that takes a wrong turn. He sees a white house with what had once been beautiful gardens. He knows it's unlikely anyone lives there, but he approached the house hoping someone could give him directions. It is at this time he feels a small hand in his.
The sensation of feeling this child's hand in his begins to occur from time to time and starts to impact the man's life. He is obsessed with relocating the house and putting to rest the reason he is being haunted.

The second story deals with a pair of cousins that are forced as children, for one reason or other to live with their aunt. Now, the cousins are adults and have been informed their elderly aunt has passed away. So they return to the house of their childhood. Memories surface regarding the wish for a certain type of doll and receiving another one instead. It seems that the aunt and the doll are not too happy about being mistreated.

Just in time for Halloween the queen of ghost stories, Susan Hill, gives us two spine tingling stories to read on a cold winter night.
Both of these tales are set in Britain and have the tone of British ghost stories. The first story was a the better one in my opinion. The second story did have a couple of twist , but it wasn't really a GHOST story per se. I suppose it could be called a haunting.
Either way, these stories are short and just right for getting into the Halloween spirit or if you are just in the mood for a good ghostly yarn.
Overall this one is a B.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

These two stories are not the shivering kind of scary, but more of the creepy, atmospheric kind of scary. Like Tales of the CRypt, for those who know of or remember that show. They both feature a family connection, but in all other ways they are very different. Love everything thiS author has written, all her books are well done and this one is no different.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adam Snow is into antiques. That is his job. To travel all over the world finding lost treasures. While heading back from one of his trips, Adam comes upon an old, abandoned house. The White House. Adam gets out of the car. While standing looking at the house Adam feels a small child's hand grab a hold of his hand. Adam leaves but he is haunted by the memory of the small child's hand. He starts doing research on the White House. Adam will uncover something about the house and the child that will change his life forever.

Edward and his cousin, Leonora have been sent to their aunt's house for the summer. Leonora is a spoiled brat. Thus it is no surprise when she throws a fit at her birthday party. She get a doll. In a rage of anger she throws it across the room. Edward will not forget the anger or the doll. Years later the doll will haunt Edward and his cousin for the rest of their lives.


I picked up this book because I am always in the mood for a good scare. Sadly this book did not give me chills up my back or made me constantly looking over my shoulder. This is what I crave when I pick up these types of books. Thus this is part of the reason that I could not rate this book as high as I wanted. The other reason is that I thought that the second story was weaker of the two. I blasted through it quickly but that is because I was only semi reading it while skimming it. Overall an alright book for the price.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Small Hand", Susan Hill:
I thought this was a great slow-burn, atmospheric tale at heart, but the modern technology seemed "at odds" with a Victorian ghost setting. A lot of information about the MC's day-to-day activities felt like filler, and unnecessary to the understanding of the story itself. Still, the ending brought much together, and some parts were quite chilling. 3 stars.

"Dolly", Susan Hill:
The second novella in this book had more going for it, in my opinion. A faster pace, the time setting worked perfectly, and the backstory wasn't "too much", but rather just enough that was needed. Of course, a haunted doll is almost always a win in my opinion. 4.5 stars.

Overall, a solid collection of two well-written novellas, with deep supernatural themes.

Recommended.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Susan Hill is the author of “The Woman in Black”, and so I expected some very creepy ghost stories. With “The Small Hand” she delivers beautifully. A man, lost while driving to a client’s house, accidentally comes across a deserted house and garden in the English countryside and he feels drawn to it; while there, he experiences a small, childlike hand grasping his own- except there is no child there. Most people would want no more to do with the premises at this point, but the man- Adam Snow- delves into the history of the property with the aid of his client’s wife. While she does this, though, he finds that the invisible child has followed him- unusual for a ghost as they seem to be tied to a property. And the child keeps trying to pull him into very dangerous situations. Who is this child, and why has he attached himself to Adam? A discover by the client’s wife gives him a clue not just to who the child is, but to his own past. The ending was a great surprise to me; it was not what I was expecting. A very good, creepy story.

“Dolly”, on the other hand, left me cold, and not in the good, scary way. Cousins Edward and Leonora are sent to spend a summer at their Aunt Kestral’s house in the English countryside. Kestral has no children and has no experience dealing with them; the only other person in the house is her housekeeper Mrs. Mullen, who actively dislikes children. The cousins are pretty much on their own and it soon becomes apparent that Leonora is a budding sociopath, just like her mother. When Aunt Kestral, aided by Edward, attempts to give a nice birthday present to Leonora it’s not the right doll and she rejects it, smashing on the stone floor. That action is to have consequences forty years down the road.

Evil inanimate object stories can be very scary, and dolls can creepy just sitting still. There are eerie moments- rustling sounds and crying in the night- and Hill is the master of atmosphere. But somehow the story just didn’t hang together. It’s more a story of “Well, that’s truly unfortunate” than horror.

[Ray Palen · Rating 4 out of 5]

No one quite writes good old fashioned style British ghost stories like Susan Hill. It is a pleasure to read her work --- the most famous being THE WOMAN IN BLACK --- and I cannot praise her enough for keeping this style of writing alive.

Her latest effort features two short novellas each with similar themes. THE SMALL HAND finds an antiquarian book-seller being drawn to an abandoned home where he gets the feeling of a small child's hand entering into his own. He becomes obsessed with this feeling and overcome by the fact the he cannot resist the desire to throw himself into the nearest body of water and drown himself. As he continues to fight this madness he uncovers the truth behind the small ghostly visitation.

In DOLLY we have a more straight-forward ghost/horror story. Using inanimate objects, such as dolls, is a legendary theme in horror/ghost tales and this novella features a buried china doll set on enacting revenge. Edward Cayley must deal with this very doll --- originally tied to his questionable cousin, Leonora --- and the horror that has haunted him through his life based on the unrequited relationship between Leonora and her dolly.

Perfect tales for telling around the fireplace or anywhere you are spending a spooky, fall evening.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Hill is good at writing unsettling and creepy stories. These were good n creepy

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is actually 2 separate novellas. Perfect spooky season reads. Atmospheric in a classic gothic sense. The pacing worked well until the resolve. I liked the Small Hand better than Dolly. 3.25

[Emily Garmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐️

[David Caldwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won a copy on Goodreads Firstreads.

This is actually two short novels. Both are horror stories, but not the type of horror stories that are so common now. There are no hordes of zombies or vampires. There is no clown with a mouthful of razor sharp teeth and a chainsaw wanting to hack the characters into bloody bits. In fact, there is no blood (well at least in The Small Hand, I haven't read Dolly yet). But there is plenty of suspense and creepiness. It isn't the terror of the trapdoor and that short fatal drop of the gallows. It is that anticipatory fear that continues to build as you sit in your cell and hear the workmen hammering together the gallows. It is that walk towards the gallows where that final hope of being saved vanishes into the certainty of a fatal outcome.

In The Small Hand, a dealer in antique and rare books takes a wrong turn and ends up at a derelict house and gardens. It is there that begins a chain of events that will dramatically change his life and haunt him for the rest of his days.

Note: I wanted to start this review even though I am only halfway through the book because I didn't want to forget what I was wanting to say about the first story. I will finish the review and give my rating as soon as I finish the second story.

Okay, I have finished reading Dolly so I can wrap up this review. This is another example of a subtle horror story. Unfortunately it was a little too subtle for me. It did not have that anticipation that builds the sense of eeriness that The Small Hand did so well. The chills came to close to the story's end. Also where The Small Hand explained the unnatural events, Dolly just stated the strangeness with no real reasoning.

This bit doesn't really have anything to do with the book but it still seems appropriate.So feel free to ship this paragraph. Dolls are creepy. Not all dolls of course. But china dolls(like the one on the book's cover) are definitely creepy. I think it is because while they look human, they lack any trace of emotions (those blank white masks at Halloween can also be included). Faces are supposed to show emotion. We all get so much data from facial expressions and usually do it so automatically that we don't even think about it until it is missing. So while dolls are made to look human, they remain very inhuman as well. (This is one reason that robot designers do not try to make robots look human since they can't emulate emotions yet. People find the metallic faces easier to deal with than a human looking face that can not show emotions.)Having said this, I fully expected to be creeped out more by Dolly than The Small Hand.

I would rate The Small Hand 5 stars. I would give Dolly 3 stars. So to average it out, I am giving the book a rating of 4 stars. If you like your horror to be more like an Alfred Hitchcock movie or a Twilight Zone episode, then you should like this book. If you prefer the slasher/high body count horror stories, than these tales might be a little too tame for you.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

With Halloween fast approaching, this is a quite timely release of two spooky novellas from Hill. I read her mystery series just last year and though I enjoyed some installments more than others, all clearly display Hill’s talents with words and atmospheres. And this collection shares this same extent of her talents.

The first story starts off as a sort of traditional ghost story - complete with a decrepit, crumbling manor and some downright treacherous vibes. And in under 150 pages, the plot manages to hold some genuine shocks - and some chilling scenes. The descriptions all creep off the pages with a surprisingly vivid nature. Unfortunately, the narrative style draws the story out a bit too slowly at times which reduces the overall tension and creepiness. But it’s a quite complete story and I can see its success in an abbreviated re-telling around a campfire or other spooky opportunity for sharing scary stories.

The second novella also falls into the realms of a traditional spooky tale. The narrator, Edward, looks back on a fateful childhood summer when he first met his cousin Leonora at his Aunt Kestrel’s forbidding manor. Leonora, a vibrant and spoiled child, is quite the antithesis of her cousin and after her birthday, her abhorrent behavior really makes those differences apparent. Ultimately, this is a much darker story - but also one that feels more familiar in a way. It too can easily be shortened for recounting it with a flashlight beneath the chin at a gathering.

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved Susan Hill ever since I read A Woman in Black. While these were not my favorite of her stories they were still pretty good. The first story was about a man who feels a small hand in his constantly tugging towards water. The descriptions of the decaying garden and it's house were wonderful. When Adam finally visits the house and meets it's inhabitant the creepy factor was at a ten. The second story was about two cousins who visit their aunt one summer. The girl, Leonora is given a doll but her ungrateful actions about the gift go on to cause her a lifetime of suffering. I think dolls are naturally creepy anyway and lend themselves perfectly to a horror story. Susan Hill is a master at the English Gothic story. I will always be eager to read whatever she conjures up.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me back some fifty years to the time I fell in love with books..Hill brought back memories of some of the great writers. There were two ghost stories in this book and both were so well crafted and masterfully done...The Small Hand tells of a book seller taking a wrong turn and comes across a run-downed Edwardian house. Looking for help he knocks at the door when he feels the sensation of a small hand slide into his...Dolly is a story about Edward and his cousin Leonora. Edward an orphan,sweet and always the peace maker and Leonora a spoiled deeply troubled bully spend the summer at their Aunt Kestrel's estate. Leonora was given a doll for her birthday. Not the doll she wanted. She goes into a rage, bashing the china doll. That act, will haunt Edward for years to come...

[April robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Already finished the first story in this 2 story story book. I was surprised at the ending, can't wait to finish Dolly...starting out great so far !! :}
ok finished the 2nd story in this book, it's called Dolly and this is a scary story...it was actually good. I liked it very much it is a very easy read and not very big.

[David Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The are two novellas in the classic British tradition of ghosts associated with old houses. They are both elegant and ingenious in balancing the realistic against the possibility of the supernatural. I strongly recommend them.

[Doug Bolden · Rating 3 out of 5]

At essentially the same time as reading through this one, I was (and am) gently reading through Edith Wharton's collected ghost stories [one a time, with some gap given for thought], and that is a portion of why I found this collection of two novellas so middling in quality. Another portion, perhaps a bigger portion, is having read Hill's The Man in the Picture and The Woman in Black, I have seen how well she handles the same slow-burn, thoughtful hauntings she is going for here...the main difference here being these feel artificially slow-burn, extended outward from their core strength only to be collapsed back in upon themselves when it is time.

The first, "The Small Hand", is the stronger of the two, the extension almost helping it to feel like a proper character study. There is little character to study in the second, "Dolly": a boring man and a spoiled woman were a boring child and a spoiled brat, and somehow both of these things are sins revisited upon them at a later time in life, exemplified by a pair of dolls that are somehow implied to be from the same source (perhaps). Both of these novellas deal with things done as children and/or to children and how they haunt us later, but, again, the internal logic is off. In both, the ending is perhaps the weakest element, almost unfitting the type of story that came before. The first makes the sin of having a whole final chapter that explains everything that did not need to be explained, deflating the impact of the better ending in the previous chapter. The second adds another snare that is perhaps meant to make you reevaluate some things about how the narrator parsed events, potentially hinting at unreliability. You might could see it as a study of the way our own flaws impact our children, but if that is the moral it is told cruelly and without inner logic.

Though it must be said that there are places where the second story makes some weird glitches in discussing the family tree as given. The aunt describes herself as a great aunt at one point (or at least, great aunt to the man, the sentence is somewhat confusing to read). The daughter of the younger sister describes her mother as being the older one (there is perhaps a childlike glitch, here, since the younger sister outlived the older). Maybe this hints towards a slightly different intention originally, that was edited for some reason but not entirely fixed, and maybe that would explain the double punch ending. Or maybe it is meant to imply the narrator himself is misstating facts to make himself seem more harmless. Of course, a later line suggests that even the childhood events are his recollection, despite there being gaps in his later knowledge...and thoughts of other characters are interjected. It is a mess. Beautifully written mess, sure, but a mess. If it is playing games, it is playing them a little too close to the sense of being poorly edited.

Neither story is bad. Both have flights of greatness. As a whole, though, neither soar for very long or very far. The ghost story is a genre that is often about reusing old ideas and plots in new ways, finding new expressions or touches to retell the essentially the same haunting again and again. Hill manages this, but never quite in a way to make these stories essential. Only read these if you have read the other two I have mentioned by Hill and want more.

[fer_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Small Hand” started off a bit slow for me. I continued reading because I wanted to know what/who was haunting Adam Snow. It was well written and it had its spooky moments. However, the ending left me asking “WHY?! 🤷🏻‍♀️”. I really dislike it when suspense/thrillers have an unbelievable and unlikely ending, but I think I prefer that over an ending that leaves me confused and with so many questions. This ghost story did that and I kind of felt let down because I was enjoying the way the story was unfolding. I felt that the ending was rushed and so much was left out about why a major event in the story took place.

3 ⭐️ for “The Small Hand” 🤝


I found “Dolly” a lot more interesting and intriguing. I don’t know what it is about dolls but they just never fail to add an eerie, dark, sinister touch to any ghost story. I like how Hill was able to create characters that made you feel something for them (good or bad) in such a short time. Edward Cayley and Leonora Sebastian are the two main characters in this story and the way their stories played out made sense and wasn’t too far fetched. This novella wasn’t as spooky as I hoped it would be, but was one I enjoyed reading all the same.

5 ⭐️ for “Dolly” 🧸


4 ⭐️ average for the book

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite kind of horror--creepy, a heavy hand with atmosphere and setting, a "slow burn" style of disturbing revelations and scares, British setting (especially the fens), and a just-right balance of character development that is detailed enough to enable you to care about the main characters but not so deeply attached that you cannot handle the horrors that befall them.

I absolutely <3 <3 <3 love love love this author's style.

Most positive reviews I found of this book praised "Dolly," but I thought "The Small Hand" was the way creepier, way more realistic story of the pair, and had the more satisfying, just conclusion. I could practically feel that little hand in mine (shudder). Dolly was incredibly well done and had the more powerful use of a creeptastic gloomy setting, but the ending did not make a whole lot of sense to me, and I am never a fan of the "descendants suffer for the sins of the ancestors" theme (and what was the sin anyway?).

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Susan Hill's writing and she's not exactly disappointing here, but these novellas certainly don't have the power of Woman in Black, or Strange Meeting. Of the two, Dolly is the best; it's also the strangest. It has echoes of familiar ghost stories and yet is not quite like any of them and was surprising, unpredictable in its plot. The Small Hand was predictable but very well-written, and it very elegantly foreshadowed the tragic ending. But Dolly was unusual. I think what I liked most about it was that the most memorable part wasn't one of the classic 'horror' elements, but this one moment when the boy and girl are awakened by a storm and feel, for a few moments, electrified and happy. It's the kind of detail that just makes you aware that they are never happy anywhere else in the book, but Hill doesn't point that out. She gives the reader just enough detail to be affecting, and no more.

[Ruth E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Susan Hill's writing style. Her stories keep me so interested. However, with that said, I was somewhat disappointed with the endings of both these stories. In the first, I liked it being the brother as the perpetrator at the end, but I didn't understand why he had done it in the first place. What prompted him to kill the child? Was it an accident? The second story should have ended a chapter sooner. I understood what happened with Leonora, but why was Edward's child stricken? Was it because he had buried the first doll? And was there something special about the man who sold him the Indian Princess doll? So, I would probably have given the book a 3, but because I like her style and she kept me so interested, I went ahead and gave it a 4.

[Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good spooks and mysteries. I'll admit that I'm not one hundred percent satisfied with the endings of either story, but they kept me interested to the end. I do think Dolly, which was my favorite of the two, needed a little more of an explanation at the end because all we're left with is the vague idea that...dolls are magic I guess? And Lenora as a mystery to herself didn't get much of an explanation. I mean, when a little girl screams with the sound of an animal or demon in a spook story, you expect something to come out of it. Still, I throughly enjoyed both stories and will likely be reading them again to pick apart the mysteries now that I know the truths.

[Katyak79 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two short story format ghost(ish) tales that probably would be fun for mid grade readers during spooky season, but was underwhelming for me. This leans heavily toward gothic horror and unfortunately that genre has never really drawn me in the way others do. The second story deals with a child ghost, and is really sad more than it is scary or creepy. The second story is much better and would do well as a film someday.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit I have a certain fondness for a carefully crafted ghost story and always have. These two stories, make a total of three, that I have read by Susan Hill. All three I enjoyed and all three get a solid rating of 4 stars. Susan Hill certainly has a knack for the eerily written haunting novels.