A Touch of Chill (Lions S.)

by Joan Aiken

• ISBN10: 0006717640
• ISBN13: 9780006717645
• Publish Date: 28 May 1981 (first published 16 August 1979)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 10 July 1992
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Tracks
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[Cameron Trost]

I almost stopped reading this collection, but I'm glad I didn't. The first story in "A Touch of Chill" didn't impress me, so I decided to read the last two in the book. They didn't impress me much either. At that point, I put the book aside. Later, I discovered "Time to Laugh", one of the stories from this collection, in an anthology I was reading. Lo and behold, I quite liked that creepy, atmospheric tale. So, I decided to give the collection another shot. As it turned out, although I found about half the stories not especially interesting, there were a number that were quite chilling, and a few real gems. I've given the collection three stars overall, but if I were to rate each story individually, the range would be from two to five. The two tales that deserve a very special mention are "Listening" and "A Game of Black and White". They are both beautifully written and extremely eerie. The former is so wonderfully strange and quite profound. In fact, it's still got me wondering.