Ghost Novel Review: The Little Stranger
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters In many ways this book reminded me of Jane Eyre—the retrospective narrator, the gloomy atmosphere, the decaying mansion. Minus, of course, lapses into Dear reader confidences. Just as Bronte did before her, Waters renders the crumbling mansion’s inhabitants with subtle shifts—Mrs. Ayres, increasingly desperate to maintain the veneer of the landed gentry; Roderick Ayres, desperate to preserve himself inviolate; Catherine Ayres, desperate to keep it together despite a malevolent supernatural presence. And then…