
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Friday Finds is hosted by Should Be Reading.
Set in rural Warwickshire just after the Second World War, The Little Stranger is her fifth novel, the first with a male narrator, Dr. Faraday. We meet the doctor at Hundreds Hall, a former grand structure now wasting away, and home to the Ayreses for close to two centuries. Members of the landed gentry now fallen to ruin, the Ayreses — Mrs. Ayres and her two grown children, Caroline and Roderick — seem steeped in a bygone, gentler age. Called upon to examine the housemaid, Dr Faraday finds himself strangely drawn to the dilapidated house, where his own mother used to work as a maid 30 years ago.
What begins as mild fascination with the house and its residents will transform itself into something more pronounced as Dr. Faraday scrambles to make sense of the strange happenings that begin to haunt Hundreds. Unexplained marks appear on the walls, fires start on their own accord, and footsteps break the silence of unoccupied rooms. Acting both as doctor and confidant, Dr. Faraday’s life becomes closely entwined with the Ayreses, even as a string of greater tragedies descend on the Hundreds.
This one sounds like a good one for the R.I.P IV challenge that I talked about here. What caught your eye this week?

