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.” —Lisa Gabriele, author of The Winters

“Hand pays homage to gothic literature and England’s postwar, bohemian Bright Young Things social set, evoking the period’s glamorous excesses and social dangers with atmospheric menace and knife-edged desire…Hand tops her masterful storytelling in A Haunting on the Hill with this must-read.” —Booklist (starred review)

"Olivia’s narration offers du Maurier-esque rewards through matchless descriptions of period attire, decor, and mores. . . . The plot gathers steam in the book’s last hundred pages, by which point corpses are piling up, and Ledges assumes some of the mystique of Rebecca’s Manderley. A slow-to-simmer but glimmering gothic pleasure.” —Kirkus

“Attraction turns to infatuation, then a volatile mélange of love and obsession, which Hand’s bold writing brilliantly captures. But even as their affair ignites, a sense of violence, just barely contained beneath the surface, permeates the text. Hand masterfully uses the gothic to explore the tumult of the ’20s, when queer culture was both tantalizing and scandalous, and Unspeakable Things captures both the beauty and the danger of the era."—BookPage

“A young woman learns the limits of passion in this tantalizing historical suspense novel. . . . The novel blooms into an intoxicating sapphic thriller replete with Daphne du Maurier–worthy descriptions of Cornwall and sharp observations about a pleasure-loving society in decline. It’s a dark delight.” —Publishers Weekly

“Unspeakable Things is billed as a sort of prequel to Rebecca, which it certainly is, but the novel is also so much more. . . . Set in the early 1920s, Unspeakable Things follows the romantic, erotic, and occasionally murderous adventures of two young women in Cornwall. . . . An amazingly crafted and delightfully playful reverse-gothic in which the heroines aren’t running away from the manor—they’re running towards it.” —CrimeReads

“As one might intuit from her accolades, Hand’s work is firmly rooted in genre fiction—science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, historical fiction and the gothic, among others, which she blends masterfully and seamlessly into formulations uniquely her own.” —Portland Press Herald

“Unspeakable Things checks all the boxes for classic gothic suspense, but with a difference. This novel is the resulting subversion, one that poses a challenge to gender norms and our own notions of good and evil, while also investing in two heroines the kind of courage and wiliness that would make the talented Mr. Ripley nod in admiration." —Crime Fiction Review

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