Hello and welcome to Story Time for Grownups. I'm Faith Moore, and this season we're reading

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Each episode, I'll read a few chapters from the book,

pausing from time to time to give brief explanations, so it's easier to follow along. It's like an

audiobook with built-in notes.

So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair, and settle in.

It's story time. Hi, welcome back. Thank you so much for being here with me. Thank you for spending your time with me right now. I'm thrilled to be here. I've been getting so many great letters. I feel like suddenly now we're in it. We're in the

story. Things are happening and you guys are starting to ask great questions and to wonder things

and to come up with theories and we're going to talk a lot more about that when we get to our

discussion section. But it kind of feels like things are locking in now. Like we now kind of

understand what story we're in and we're starting to think, okay, like we were talking about last

time, what is it? What's the mystery? Where is it going to come from? It's sort of like we're all

standing here, like looking up and around and behind us. Like when is this thing going to drop

on our heads? Like, where is it coming from which direction

right and that's so fun I'm having so much fun with it I hope you are too this is a fun

book it's supposed to be fun many of you have written lately also to say how funny it is

and many of you have asked me is it supposed to be funny is it okay that I laughed at the description of Mrs be funny? Is it okay that I laughed at the description

of Mrs. Basie? Is it okay that I laughed at Pesca? Is it okay that I laughed at Mr. Fairley? And the answer is

yes, absolutely yes. This book is also funny. Sure, it's suspenseful. Sure, there's all these

sensation things. There's this sense of foreboding. There's this foreshadowing.

But it's also funny. And the funny is important because the funny helps it be fun instead of just

dark and suspenseful and kind of creepy or, you know, the suspense gets too much and you're like,

I can't handle this anymore or whatever it is, the humor is there to

...