Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black is a perfect Christmas ghost story. It’s chilling and suspenseful and sad without being graphic at all. It’s a wonderful blend of classic gothic elements and clean, modern storytelling that drew me in completely. This novel actually spooked me a bit, had me glancing around as I read, just to be sure I was quite safe and there weren’t any ghosts nearby, and that’s a rare and exciting thing for me.

The story begins with Arthur Kipps as an older gentleman, gathered around the fire with his wife and children, grandchildren tucked away in bed. It’s a beautiful Christmas Eve, and in a holiday spirit they start telling ghosts stories, each one more gruesome and fantastical than the next. For most of the family it’s harmless fun but Arthur grows so uncomfortable he has to flee the house. Arthur, we find out, has is own ghost story, a true one, and it’s much too plain and simple and much too terrifying for a night by the fire.

There are no cliffside castles or windswept moors in Arthur’s story, only a grieving ghost and a house in the salt marshes, set on its own little island you can only get to at low tide. Mr. Kipps has been sent to Eel Marsh House to put the late owner’s papers in order and settle her estate. The house is stark but attractive, the work seems boring but easy, and the nearby village of Crythin Gifford is charming and full of friendly people.

The salt marshes are deceptive. The windows of Eel Marsh House look out on miles of calm estuary and flat grass, and until the fog rolls in it seems nothing can hide in such a landscape. But the land itself is hiding dark secrets. It’s not solid at all, hiding quicksand and peat and underground currents ready to swallow you whole. What Arthur finds at this haunted house, and what haunts him so many years later, is that life is exactly like that salt marsh. You think it’s all laid out around you, plain to see and easy to navigate, nothing you can’t handle, and suddenly the ground gives out and you’re drowning.

You might survive. Arthur survived. You might find solid ground again and make your way forward. You may never sink like that again. But the world will never seem quite as safe, and you’ll never stop feeling for hidden danger.

Everyone in Crythin Gifford has learned this hard lesson, but there’s no use trying to explain. Warning Arthur would do no good. It has to be experienced.

Hill simplifies or drops the more flowery gothic conventions and uses a simple writing style focused on emotion, and most of the story’s tension lies in Arthur’s natural optimism and cheerfulness being threatened and overwhelmed by the ghost’s hunger and grief. On this emotional level, Arthur’s experience could happen, maybe already has happened, to any of us.

As I said, the perfect Christmas ghost story. The desolation of Eel Marsh House and its ghost make you cling to warmth and love even tighter, just as Arthur eventually learns to do.

I give this book five out of five haunted houses. I loved it.

Next book: White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi.