Susan Hill

[SarahPapesh]

I just finished reading a short novel by this author (I guess she was the author of The Woman in Black) and I am not certain if I like her style of writing yet or not. I did enjoy the story, but having watched The Woman in Black (didn't know it was a book), the story line in this novel, The Small Hand, seems eerily familiar to the story line presented in The Woman in Black. Both story lines are distinct, however, there is just something that is so obvious that it is by the same author. I am not certain if I like that or not. Anyone have any opinions on this author?

[Smitha Nayak]

Hill was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Her home town was later referred to in her novel A Change for the Better (1969) and in some short stories like 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[3] 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.[4] By this time, she had already written her first novel, The Enclosure, which was published by Hutchinson in her first year at the 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"

[SarahPapesh]

Hmm -interesting . . .

[FlorenceDupuis]

I wouldn't be able to say, since the only thing I read from his in fact The Woman In Black, which I loved. I would hoever say that I noticed Edgar Allan Poe to be that way. I read only to stories by him, The Black Cat and The Tail-Tale Heart, which is like, the same story. And for that, I am totally with you, it's annoying, lacks originality, and is kind of insulting to the reader, so I guess if the Small Hand is to much like The Woman In Black, it's normal that you find it annoying. No need to write the same book twice with different words hun?