Wylding Hall

This was quite entertaining and did creep me out at least once. I'd say it's not so much “horror” as “weird fiction.” There isn't really a climax, and (thank goodness) no expository explanation at the end. I'm so glad Hand resisted the opportunity to have Nancy provide a tidy bow on the story, with her psychic powers and occult knowledge.

No, what makes this good is that Nancy doesn't know what happened. Lesley doesn't know what happened. No one knows what happened. Nancy was sensitive enough to feel that something was seriously wrong in this place, but that's all. And that feeds the weirdness. Hand gives us feather-soft brushes of the eldritch to put us in the right head space, and then, Julian just vanishes. No monster chase scene, no thunder and lightning, just absence. And Lesley's vision of tiny blood spots on the walls and birds smashing themselves on the bedroom window.

The bits and pieces of horror are woven subtly throughout, from photos of a pre-Christian ritual that has somehow survived in the village longer than elsewhere* to someone singing in a dark room, whom no one can quite identify, to the stairway in the Tudor wing that may not exist entirely in our three dimensions, you can pick up these off notes if you're patient. If you're looking for a spooky ghost or slavering monster, this isn't going to work for you. But it does have a good dose of dread, and plenty of atmosphere.

One warning - I wouldn't do the audio book, because the actor voicing Lesley was really irritating. I think she's a Brit putting on an American accent, and it just came out overly drawly and drawn out, like she's thinking way too hard about every word. Distracting and it prevented her from showing appropriate emotion based on what she was talking about.

*Apparently Hunting the Wren is still celebrated in Ireland today!