Shirley Jackson writes creepy, atmospheric stories like no other. This isn't a ghost story, exactly, but there's still some kind of haunting going on, and it's the kind of haunting that I think is scarier for not being actual ghosts. I read this on a summer night, but I can only imagine how flesh-crawlingly scary it would be reading this in late fall, bare tree branches tap tap tapping against the windows, cold drafts seeping in through the walls. Because even in high summer, that's the feeling this book leaves behind.