Unspeakable Things

“Elizabeth Hand takes the gothic novel—trembling heroines, foggy moors, rambling mansions, a powerful man who holds all the keys—and hands the weapons to the women instead. A sapphic folie à deux, set against a backdrop of postwar bohemian decadence and culminating in an epic ball where every mask hides another mask, Unspeakable Things is propulsive and heart-stopping: a story about desire as a weapon and gender as a game. Shirley Jackson's visceral dread meets Daphne du Maurier's dark, sexy twists. I rooted for Tamsin and Olivia while being a little terrified of them—and of the power of their attraction to each other, the kind of love that destroys everything in its path.” 

Praise for A Haunting on the Hill

“Hand’s facility with language and atmosphere and use of short, propulsive chapters work their own dark magic on the reader. It’s a compelling and frightening novel, but did it need to take place in Jackson’s universe? Probably not — and that’s why it works…In a landscape of soulless franchises geared toward quick, shallow hits of fan service, she has the maturity and talent to deliver the follow-up that Jackson’s novel deserves … Like Jackson, Hand offers no explanation for Hill House’s malevolence, preserving the original novel’s power and mystery.”—New York Times Book Review

“To join Elizabeth Hand on her journey to Hill House is to be reminded of the slippery dominance of genius, the way it both establishes and breaks its own rules . . . Hand has a gift for the sensuous, evocative detail, and her descriptions are often simultaneously seductive and spooky.”—The New Yorker

“The unsettling atmosphere in this novel builds from the start and never disappoints. Hand deftly layers the history of the house with the past of each character and the things that haunt them. . . . A Haunting on the Hill is a love letter to Hill House and a very impressive tribute to Shirley Jackson. It is also a tremendous addition to Hand's already outstanding, multi-genre oeuvre.”—Gabino Iglesias, NPR