Book 31 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year — I managed to squeeze one more in before the new year! My goal for 2026 will be 36 books, so off I go on a new quest starting tomorrow. As is now default for me, my link to the book is through my bookshop dot org affiliate account.

One of my favorite horror movies of all time is Robert Wise’s 1963 The Haunting, a brilliant adaptation of one of my favorite horror novels of all time, Shirley Jackson’s 1959 The Haunting of Hill House. When I happened to come across Elizabeth Hand’s 2023 novel A Haunting on the Hill, there was really no doubt about picking it up to read.

For those who might be unfamiliar, The Haunting of Hill House is the story of a team of four investigators who arrive at the infamous Hill House with the goal of uncovering proof of the supernatural. But Hill House is an entity in and of itself, and a malevolent one, and it subtly and then not-so-subtly manipulates the temporary residents until it finds one that it can break and destroy. The novel is a classic haunted house tale, but also a magnificently horrific tale of psychological manipulation and abuse. In every haunted house story, the house itself is the main character, but that has perhaps never felt more true than in Shirley Jackson’s novel.

Hand’s A Haunting on the Hill is a follow-up to the original novel, set in the present day, authorized and even solicited by the Jackson estate. We again follow a group of four people who opt to reside in the house for a short period of time, but this time it is a group of artists who have chosen the house as a location to workshop a stage play. We have Holly, the playwright, who stumbles across Hill House during a trip and decides to spend a small art grant to rent it. We have Nisa, Holly’s girlfriend and a singer, who will provide the music and singing for the play. We have Stevie, a former addict and actor who will play one of the two major roles, and we have Amanda, an aging actress who views this role as her chance to claim some small amount of stardom again.

Each of the quartet has their own desperate motivations for wanting the play to work, keeping them in the house well after common sense has told them they should leave. And each of them has their own skeletons in the closet that the house can prey upon. And even if they decide to leave, a severe winter storm that is rapidly approaching may take the choice away from them…

To me, the novel works in part like the inverse of a murder mystery. From Jackson’s original novel and the history of the house as given, we expect that it will attempt to claim one of the visitors as its own — we spend most of the novel wondering who will be the first one to break. In the original The Haunting of Hill House, it is quite clear who is going to be targeted by the supernatural presence, but here it could be any of them, which is a big part of the fun. We get to watch the house probe each person for weaknesses, one by one, until it finds the perfect target.

Hill House is generally a subtle haunting (unlike the awful 1999 adaptation of the story), and there is a slow buildup of unusual events, glimpses of strange beings, and inexplicably lost time before the finale. Hand does a remarkable job of keeping the tension high and the ghosts just out of sight throughout. She brings back some of the classic phenomenon of Jackson’s original tale but adds her own twists along the way — Hill House has learned many tricks since people visited it in the 1959 novel.

Overall, A Haunting on the Hill is a wonderful continuation of the story of Hill House, and I enjoyed it immensely. I finished the last 75 pages of this 300 page book in one reading, as one events started spiraling out of control I wanted to find out what would happen!

The book includes an afterward by the author explaining part of the process of writing the book and includes one small surprise that delighted me and I will not spoil here!

(As a final note: since I’ve mentioned every other adaptation of the original novel, I should note that the 2018 Mike Flanagan television series The Haunting of Hill House is also excellent, though a very loose adaptation.)