The House on Cold Hill

by Peter James Narrated by Nicholas Boulton

Overview

They said the dead can't hurt you . . . They were wrong.

The House on Cold Hill is a chilling and suspenseful ghost story from the multi-million copy bestselling author of Dead Simple, Peter James.

Moving from the heart of Brighton and Hove to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for Ollie and Caro Harcourt and their twelve-year-old daughter Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House - a huge, dilapidated Georgian mansion - Ollie is filled with excitement. Despite the financial strain of the move, he has dreamed of living in the country since he was a child, and he sees Cold Hill House as a paradise for his animal-loving daughter, the perfect base for his web-design business and a terrific long-term investment. Caro is less certain, and Jade is grumpy about being separated from her friends.

Within days of moving in, it becomes apparent that the Harcourt family aren't the only residents of the house. A friend of Jade's is the first to see the spectral woman, standing behind her as the girls talk on FaceTime. Then there are more sightings, as well as increasingly disturbing occurrences in the house. As the haunting becomes more malevolent and the house itself begins to turn on the Harcourts, the terrified family discover Cold Hill House's dark history, and the horrible truth of what it could mean for them . . .

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

10/24/2016
The chains that rattle in this unsettling contemporary gothic are not spectral but financial: mortgages and work contracts that bind the owners to their haunted mansion. The Harcourts—spouses Ollie, a website developer, and Caro, a property lawyer, along with daughter Jade—move to a Georgia country house in need of repair and, it seems, exorcism. Jade thinks the haunting is charming until the phantoms turn threatening. And Ollie finds his own perceptions of reality are increasingly unreliable as his health and his business start to suffer. James (the Roy Grace mysteries) neatly interlaces the traditional (spooky old building, eccentric locals, legend of missing/murdered wife) with the modern (ghosts as persistent energy patterns that can interact with the Internet and cell phones), never losing the essential heart of the horror as it derails the lives of its victims. After an opening scene of gore, the novel takes time to build to its final unavoidable and understated tragedies. Agent: Carole Blake, Blake Friedmann (U.K.). (Nov.)

From the Publisher

"James is a compelling storyteller and he ratchets up the tension in increments, so that his readers will be suitably terrified. By the time you want to scream 'Look behind you!', it's already too late." —Daily Mail

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171960018
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	10/08/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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