Showing results by author "Susan Hill" in All Categories

Francis Croft, the greatest poet of his age, was mad. Harvey Lawson watched and protected him until his final suicide. From his solitary old age Harvey writes this brief account of their 20 years together and then burns all the papers to shut out an inquisitive world. The tautness and control that characterize Susan Hill's work are abundantly evident in The Bird of Night as she magnificently handles the heights and depths, the splendours and miseries of madness and friendship.

Five immaculate short stories dealing with the tentative-to-frantic strategies of isolated beings distanced from unresponsive societies.

Looking out from Moon Cottage, Susan Hill records the sights and smells, the people, gardens, animals, births, festivals and deaths that mark the changing seasons in the small Oxfordshire community.

In the Prince of Wales Hotel and the shabby terraces and tearooms of Westbourne, retired lives run their course - all, in their different ways, anticipating crisis.

When a bunch of neo-fascist thugs named The Bulldogs attack a Gay pride march in the sleepy country town of Lafferton, detective Simon Serrailler moves quickly to find the assailants. He’s already got his hands full making security arrangements for a memorial service to honour soldiers returning from Afghanistan. When anonymous threats come in, Serrailler wonders if the Bulldogs are behind these too - and worries that they know the Prince of Wales will be in attendance.

DCS Simon Serrailler has long regarded drugs ops in Lafferton as a waste of time. Small-time dealers are picked up outside the local secondary school; they don't have any information about those higher up the chain; they're given a fine or a suspended and away they go. And rinse and repeat. But when the body of a 22-year-old drug addict is found in neighbouring Starley, the case pulls Simon into a whole new way of running drugs. The foot soldiers? Vulnerable local kids like Brookie and Olivia, who will give Simon a bitter taste of this new landscape.

The village is called Mount of Zeal. It's built in a bowl like an amphitheatre, with the winding gear where the stage would be. The pit lies below. Ted Howker's school is on the edge of Lower Terrace next to the chapel. Upper Terrace - in a thunderous echo of the Bible so loved by Ted's grandfather - is Paradise. Ted and his father and his brothers live in Middle. In the beginning: a household of men, all of whom work in the pit... Susan Hill is an exceptional writer at the height of her powers.

The Prime children grew up in a bleak North Country farmhouse called the Beacon. Colin married and went to work on a neighbouring farm. Bernice married locally, too. May stayed behind at the Beacon, the spinster daughter looking after ageing parents. And then there was Frank, Frank who was always watching.Frank was the one who got away. He left for London and Fleet Street, but journalism was not enough. Frank wanted fame and money...

From the foggy streets of Victorian London to the eerie perfection of 1950s suburbia, the everyday is invaded by the evil otherworldly in this unforgettable collection of new ghost stories from the author of The Woman in Black. In the title story, on a murky evening in a warmly lit club off St James, a bishop listens closely as a paranormal detective recounts his most memorable case, one whose horrifying denouement took place in that very building.

After just a year of close, loving marriage, Ruth has been widowed. Her beloved husband, Ben, has been killed in a tragic accident, and Ruth is left suddenly and totally bereft. Unable to share her sorrow and grief with Ben's family, who are dealing with their pain in their own way, Ruth becomes increasingly isolated, burying herself in her cottage in the countryside as the seasons change around her. Only Ben's young brother, Jo, is able to reach out beyond his own grief to offer Ruth the compassion which might reclaim her from her own devastating unhappiness.

Faith Lavender's funeral and the arrival of a stranger upsets the balance of Haverstock. Undercurrents of fierce emotion reach the surface while the tensions rise and the ladies of Haverstock find their actions motivated by mutual suspicion and fear.

When Simon Serrailler was a rookie constable with the Met, he did something reckless in the course of a night's work which caused a man's death. But his act was praised by his colleagues, and he was called a hero. Years later, now a detective chief superintendent who has been badly injured in the course of duty, he receives a medal for bravery at Buckingham Palace while recollecting that fateful night of his early career, when chance disguised itself as bravery.

Arthur Kipps, giovane avvocato londinese, viene incaricato di gestire l'eredità e presenziare al funerale della signora Alice Drablow, l'unica abitante di Eel Marsh House. L'antica dimora si erge in fondo a un sentiero percorribile solo con la bassa marea, immersa nella nebbia e nel mistero; ma ciò non basta a spaventare Arthur. È solo quando al funerale scorge una giovane donna vestita di nero che un sottile senso di inquietudine inizia a pervaderlo.

Ein Fall für Simon Serailler. Der neunjährige David wartet vor dem Haus seiner Eltern im englischen Städtchen Lafferton darauf, zur Schule abgeholt zu werden, doch dort kommt er nie an. Für Detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler entwickelt sich der Fall zum Albtraum: Die Ermittlungen scheinen im Sande zu verlaufen. Ist der Junge entführt worden? Ist er tot? Serrailler muss hilflos mit ansehen, wie Davids Familie an der Katastrophe zu zerbrechen droht. Dann verschwindet im Nachbarort ein weiteres Kind.

Misty Copeland made history as the first African-American principal ballerina at the American Ballet Theatre. Her talent, passion, and perseverance enabled her to make strides no one had accomplished before. But as she will tell you, achievement never happens in a void. Behind her, supporting her rise was her mentor Raven Wilkinson. Raven had been virtually alone in her quest to breach the all-white ballet world when she fought to be taken seriously as a Black ballerina in the 1950s and 60s.