A HAUNTING PAIR OF GHOST STORIES FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE WOMAN IN BLACK   The Small Hand   Antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow is returning from a client visit when he takes a wrong turn and stumbles upon a derelict Edwardian house with a lush, overgrown garden. As he approaches the door, he is startled to feel the unmistakable sensation of a small, cold hand creeping into his own, almost as though a child has taken hold of it. Shaken, he returns home to find himself plagued by nightmares. But when he decides to investigate the house’s mysteries, he is troubled by increasingly sinister visitations.   Dolly   After being orphaned at a young age, Edward Cayley is sent to spend the summer with his forbidding Aunt Kestrel at Iyot house, her decaying estate on the damp, lonely fens in the west of England. 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 through the years to come. Versatile, prolific, and polished British writer Hill presents two elegantly constructed ghost stories. Each evokes vengeful spirits relentlessly haunting the bleak English countryside in the wake of impulsive childhood wickedness. Hill further accentuates the malevolent persistence of the past by creating protagonists who are connoisseurs of history. In “The Small Hand,” Adam, a self-possessed, urbane antiquarian bookseller, is on his way to see a client when he stops to explore an estate that has fallen into ruin. There a small hand takes hold of him, as though an invisible child has placed its hand in his. Even when his quest for a Shakespeare first folio leads him to a remote French monastery, the insistent, increasingly alarming small hand follows. In “Dolly,” Edward, an architectural conservationist, returns to the scene of a stormy boyhood summer spent with his willful, wildly unhappy cousin, Leonora. Slowly he discerns, to his horror, that her violent ingratitude may have appalling repercussions. Steeped in folklore, Hill’s supremely atmospheric and utterly unnerving tales of otherworldly retribution lead us deep into the dark labyrinth of the psyche. --Donna Seaman "A compact, elegantly structured ghost story . . . happens to be one of Hill's specialties. . . . Like all good British ghost-story writers, Hill believes in meticulous structure and very rough justice. . . . Maybe it's the uneasy feeling, or maybe it's the simple pleasure of confident British storytelling craftsmanship, but something pulls you through The Small Hand with relentless urgency. This writer's grip is vicious." — The New York Times Book Review "Thanks to Hill’s deceptively simple plots and straightforward prose, you won’t even notice the noose she’s slipping around your throat." — The Seattle Times "Subtle, intelligent, shocking. . . . Shatters nerves with a whisper, not a scream." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A ghost-story duo that may remind many readers of [Stephen] King at his absolute best. . . . Turn on the lights, readers. These tales are the definition of bone chilling." — Suspense Magazine   "Masterfully done. . . . Subtle, elegant." — The Times (London)    "Spine-tingling fiction." — The Tattler (London) "An assuredly chilling ghost story." — The Guardian (London) Susan Hill has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Prize, and the W. Somerset Maugham Award, and have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her novels include Strange Meeting , I`m the King of the Castle and A Kind Man , and she has also published collections of short stories and two autobiographies. Her ghost story, The Woman in Black , has been running in London’s West End since 1988. Susan is married with two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk. One It was a little before nine o’clock, the sun was setting into a bank of smoky violet cloud and I had lost my way. I reversed the car in a gateway and drove back half a mile to the fingerpost. I had spent the past twenty-four hours with a client near the coast and was returning to London, but it had clearly been foolish to leave the main route and head across country. The road had cut through the Downs, pale mounds on either side, and then run into a straight, tree-lined stretch to the crossroads. The fingerpost markings were faded and there were no recent signs. So that when the right turning came I almost shot past it, for there was no sign at all here, just a lane and high banks in which the roots of trees were set deep as ancient teeth. But I thought that this would eventually lead me back to the A road. The lane narrowed. The sun was behind me, flaring into the rear-view mirror. Then came a sharp bend, the lane turned into a single track and the view ahead was dark beneath overhanging branches. I slowed. This could not possibly be a way. Was there a house? Could I find someone to put