This was a solid haunted house story in its own right, but it failed to live up to what I would've expected of an official companion to something as iconic and longlasting as THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE.
Indeed, the biggest strength of this was its use of the house, which comes to life in eerie detail by detail. Such care is given to making the strange mix of horror and fascination of the house was my favourite thing about the novel. While there is an attempt for the same kind of detailed care being given to the characters, it fell a little short for me and I found it difficult to emotionally engage with them in the same way I did with the original cast.
Craftwise, I found the writing suited for the kind of story this was - the aforementiond focus on setting with plenty of backstory and interiority for the characters helped build up the story, and the quick nature of the short chapters made it easy to keep turning the pages, which is the kind of experience you want from a horror novel (or at least it is that way for me). However, this failed to match the whimsy and hazy dream-like quality of Jackson's source material.
I would love to reread this and Hill House at the same time and feel like I'd get more out of it that way, but I'd recommend it regardless.

OMG!!! This book is AMAZING!!! I’m currently reading this book and wow!! It’s so good! I started this book 2 days ago and I’m already almost done!!

Holly is a play write she found a script of a play that was written a while back and had the idea to do the play using her friends and asking an actress named Amanda Greer. She also wants to find a good place to get read for her play so while driving around Hillsdale she comes up to Hill House. Holly thinks she’s hit the lottery with finding this mansion, she thinks it’s the perfect place to rehearse her play.

Holly drives back to talk to her girlfriend Nisa and talks to her about renting Hill House, Nisa wasn’t interested at first but Holly talked her into just going to see it and taking it from there. They. Go to the realtors office and they speak to the owner of the house and convince her to rent it to the for 2 weeks while they get ready for the play. The realtor agrees and Holly signs the papers and gets the key to the house.

Holly and Nisa are very excited to get there. They have Hollys friend Stevie with them and when they finally get to Hill House Stevie can’t believe his eyes. They all go inside and pick their rooms. The housekeeper is there and greets them and brought them food and tells them that she and her husband will not go out there at night and tells them not to ask them to.

The group has no idea why the housekeeper has said that and won’t tell them why. After being there 2 days strange things start to happen that the group can’t explain. Do you think Hill House is haunted? Read to find out

For a book that wants to emulate Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, I found it extremely lacking both in plot, development and execution.
The potential was there, but the characters were all over the place and the storyline just seemed downright silly at times.

I approached "A Haunting on the Hill" by Elizabeth Hand with excitement - I adore Shirley Jackson's original work, and had read and loved Hand's "Wylding Hall". "Wylding Hall" had such excellent Jackson vibes, so when I heard that Hand had been selected to write a spiritual successor to Jackson's Hill House, I was *in*.

Unfortunately, there's a fine line between an homage and paint-by-numbers. "A Haunting on the Hill" tries so hard to have Jackson-esque vibes that it winds up being quite derivative. Four characters decide to stay in a creepy mansion despite the local townfolk clearly thinking it's a bad idea, but no one's willing to be specific about it. Okay, sure, that's a trope, but it's a trope for a good reason, and in capable hands, even hackneyed premises can pay off. Part of the issue off the bat is that the four characters in question? I only liked one of them, two of them I despised, and one bored me. I'm not going to be alone in this assessment, either - it's difficult to root for cheaters who betray their supposed best friend for kicks.

So when the house ultimately starts messing with people, and doing scary things, it's hard to feel that invested if you don't care if characters live or die.

Jackson was able to hint at a multitude of terrors with her restrained word choice. Hand, unfortunately, just sounds vague. It's such a disappointment; I really and truly enjoyed Hand's other work. This is just not an experiment that paid off for me.

I'd rate this one 2.5/5 stars, rounded up to three.

I have a complicated relationship with Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House.' Its atmosphere of dread is brilliant, and Jackson's writing put me right there, in that terrible, grasping, hungry house with those unbalanced, unreliable characters. I should love it, but I hold it at arm's length. It's so bleak, so unrelentingly grim. I always wish there was more fun, more gleefulness in the horror.

Elizabeth Hand has written the version of Hill House I've wished for. Her novel is unsettling and tingly — and a stunningly good ride. I had so much fun reading this story while also furtively glancing over my shoulder and keeping the lights on. It strikes the ideal blend of terror and entertainment.

Her cast of actors is pleasingly dramatic, a pitch-perfect cocktail of narcissism, insecurity, and artistry. I rooted for them, even as I rolled my eyes at their diva-esque behavior. Hand carefully calibrated their unraveling so their 'normal' versions and Hill House versions seem to co-exist, gradually toggling between the two until they (and we, delightfully) are unsure which version is in charge.

The descriptions of the hauntings are fantastical and make sense; I could see, feel, and hear just what the characters were experiencing — and it was deliciously awful.

And really, isn't that what you want from a haunted house story? A deliciously awful, can't-look-away, please-make-it-stop, oh-no-the-book-is-over-already experience?

I'll be featuring this book in the October 6 episode of my podcast 'The Library of Lost Time.' (https://strongsenseofplace.com/library)

Thank you to NetGalley and Mulholland Books for the advance review copy.

I am a massive Elizabeth Hand fan, and I think The Haunting of Hill House is one of the most tense, psychologically tight horror novels of all time, so I was extremely excited to see that Hand (a three-time Shirley Jackson award-winner) had written a new Hill House novel.

Unlike the mousy protagonist of Jackson's novel, Hand populates her Hill House with massive egos. I suppose it's similar to the original story in that the occupants *could* take their fears seriously, and leave the house, but are held back by their own psychological torments (in this case, ambition and obsession).

All in all, it's a very good novel on its own, though when compared side-by-side with the original, it lacks a certain amount of intensity.

Nice to read and pretty creepy at times, but I also didn't like the characters all that much. I wanted to connect with the main character more, she was difficult to understand at times. Still, a good, unnerving book.

A creepy house with stupid people staying in it. The story didn't really make sense to me, but I'm sure many will enjoy it. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

Heart pounding thriller that left me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Definitely one of the best books this year.

Playwright Holly Sherwin may finally have achieved the success she’s been chasing. She’s received a grant to bring her play, The Witch of Edmonton, to life. She stumbles across Hill House, a dilapidated, Gothic pile in a remote location, and decides to rent the house. What better place to bring her story to life? Holly, her girlfriend, and a ragtag group of actors move into the house and discover that there is a presence in the house, one that will not be ignored. It takes a lot of guts to take on a classic ghost story like The Haunting of Hill House, especially in light of the book’s recent rebirth as a Netflix series. Netflix took tremendous liberties with the original book and Hand does as well. As long as you’re not a Shirley Jackson purist, you’ll find much to enjoy here. Hand does a wonderful job capturing the feeling of heavy foreboding that hangs over Hill House