It isn’t surprising, then, that Elizabeth Hand’s novel, “A Haunting on the Hill,” the first authorized novel set in the world of Jackson’s Hill House, would be an exciting and risky venture. Coming to the book, fans of Jackson will inevitably expect to experience the same haunted mansion that she created, with all its eerie oddities, while fans of Hand — a beloved author who has written more than a dozen genre-crossing and award-winning novels — will want to hear her particular voice and her uncanny ability to combine the edgy and the ethereal. It’s a difficult high wire to walk. Bringing these two heavy-hitting novelists together could alienate fans of both....And so it’s thrilling to find that “A Haunting on the Hill” is a true hybrid of these two ingenious women’s work — a novel with all the chills of Jackson that also highlights the contemporary flavor and evocative writing of Hand. The story stays true to Jackson’s vision of “Hill House” while becoming a thing of its own. Indeed, “A Haunting on the Hill” is strange and wonderful, a frightening foray into the supernatural that will inspire you to go back and reread the original.

Hand, the author of 20 novels, including “Hokuloa Road,” has long been preoccupied with the notion of artistic creation as a form of folk magic or conjuring, one that exacts its toll on body, mind or spirit. “A Haunting on the Hill” is shot through with that witchy sacrifice....In Jackson’s story, the rotten, beating heart was never the house itself. It was damaged, doomed Eleanor, newly freed from a cruel mother, whose desperate neediness and formless identity opened the door to a mad kinship with the house, a sort of demented ouroboros of domestic bliss. Hand opens up the playing field: We don’t know which, if any, of her characters might succumb to the house, which refracts and amplifies all their flaws and insecurities....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. A lesser writer might’ve paid more overt homage to “The Haunting of Hill House,” or tried to imitate Jackson’s singular prose style. Hand, wisely, does no such thing, opting for resonance over replication. 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 (even if it didn’t necessarily need one).

This riveting tale from Nebula Award winner Hand (Hokuloa Road) eerily, if sometimes unevenly, updates and riffs on Shirley Jackson’s classic ghost story The Haunting of Hill House.... While the story takes its time getting underway, Hand demonstrates masterful control over the ebb and flow of tension once it does. Lush atmospheric details and sharply observed characterization abound, but occasionally overload the plot to the point that certain elements end up feeling extraneous or underutilized. Still, this chillingly mesmerizing narrative is a worthy addition to the haunted house canon.

While the novel doesn’t draw any kind of straight line between Jackson’s characters and Hand’s, other than some “echoing” voices on a recording, clearly this novel is shaped around Jackson’s legacy, not only in the setting, but also in the characters, specifically the relationship between Holly and Nisa. What she offers, then, is not merely retelling or update, but almost palimpsest. A timeless, gothic ode that serves up the stuff of nightmares.