Mark and Steph have a relatively happy family with their young daughter in sunny Cape Town until one day when armed men in balaclavas break in to their home. Left traumatized but physically unharmed, Mark and Steph are unable to return to normal and live in constant fear. When a friend suggests a restorative vacation abroad via a popular house swapping website, it sounds like the perfect plan. … They find a genial, artistic couple with a charming apartment in Paris who would love to come to Cape Town. Mark and Steph can’t resist the idyllic, light-strewn pictures, and the promise of a romantic getaway. But once they arrive in Paris, they quickly realize that nothing is as advertised. When their perfect holiday takes a violent turn, the cracks in their marriage grow ever wider and dark secrets from Mark’s past begin to emerge.
Deftly weaving together two complex and compelling narrators, S. L. Grey builds an intimate and chilling novel of a disintegrating marriage in the wake of a very real trauma. The Apartment is a terrifying and tour-de-force of horror, of psychological thrills, and of haunting suspense.
From Blumhouse Books, a haunting thriller about a troubled married couple whose vacation to Paris leads them into a nightmare.
“An impressively compelling chiller… an ideal choice for late nights alone.” — CultureCrypt
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This was a unique take on a ghost story. It was eerie and haunting. It left me thinking about the existence of ghosts but also the effects that stress, trauma, and loss have on the mind. I’m not sure how I felt about this book but I’d love to hear what other readers think about it.
I listened to this on Audible. It has two narrators, Nicholas Guy Smith and Fiona Hardingham. I thought they were good with Ms Hardingham being the stronger narrator. I would listen to them again.
This story kept me listening. I was thinking it was a thriller but, after listening to it, I think of it as more paranormal horror. After a home invasion a couple decides to swap houses with a couple in another country. They really can’t afford a getaway so they think a house swap would be an ideal way to get over the trauma of the home invasion. They meet the other couple online and exchange home photos. An agreement is reached and they are off on their getaway. So far, it sounds good. Then they arrive to find the apartment is nothing at all like the photos. They would like to go to a hotel but aren’t able to. They stick it out in this horrible apartment. Cautionary tale of house swaps, right? Then it gets super strange. The husband finds buckets of human hair in the closet for one strange thing. It gets worse from there. When they return home, they find that whatever that was in the apartment has followed them. Yikes!
I loved the idea of a house swap. Has anyone not watched a Christmas movie where someone swapped houses? I loved those movies! They had me convinced of how fun it could be. Until I listened to this book, that is. Oh my goodness, you need to listen to this during the day! All the romance of house swapping will go right out the window. I’ll stay home, thank you very much.
This book is very interesting, the beginning and the middle, the break in flash backs and Paris are very interesting and kept me wanting more. Sadly I felt like the end really fell flat and left me wanting more closure.
When I saw this book’s recommendation from R. L. Stine, I immediately borrowed it from the library.
First thing to note is “The Apartment” is written in two perspectives, a husband’s and his younger wife’s. After thugs invade the couple’s home, they are all (including their little girl) traumatized. Mark feels guilt for failing to protect his wife and child, but he also harbors a tragic past with which he’s never come to terms. Steph tries not to resent her husband and his continued emotional distance, especially toward their daughter. The couple decides to take a holiday via a ‘home swap’ site while their little girl spends time with her maternal grandparents. They chose Paris, but the apartment they rent is nothing like advertised. It’s musty, moldy, smelly, and uninhabitable. However, they’re strapped for cash and so decide to make the best of things. In the mean time, the couple who was supposed to rent their place never shows up. A malignant spirit – or is it a psychological breakdown? – attaches to the couple, and their time in the City of Love is anything but lovely. Worse still, after they leave, the attachment – or insanity – lingers.
It is interesting to see how people might react. Certainly, people in extreme situations react in often irrational ways. That said, as I read this book, I found myself “pulling out my hair” (that’s a bit of a joke which you will get if you decide to read the book on your own) because I wouldn’t have handled anything in the way the couple did. There are some genuinely creepy aspects of this book, though, and reading the spouses’ perspectives on the same situation worked to cause me to question the reliability of one of the characters.
Possible trigger warnings that spring to mind: suicide, child harm (mentioned but not elaborated on), animal harm (elaborated on a bit), break in, weird fetish-y stuff. It implies blood more than expands upon it.
Another interesting thing about this novel is it is written by two authors, Sara Lotz and Louis Greenberg, who write under the name S. L. Grey. It was published in October, 2016.
Meh. Wanted more details in some places and the plot took turns that led no where
It deserves 0 stars. The story is horrible. The book”s description interested me and I started reading eagerly. It bombed almost from the beginning. It gave little peeks into the characters backstory, which had nothing to do with what was going on in the building so why bother? I was determined to finish — why? — because I kept thinking it would get better. It did NOT. I punished myself for nothing.
This book is so hard to get through. I bought it based on the reviews and it is absolutely no good. I don’t even know what to say about it other than that. Book is all over the place, doesn’t explain anything. Don’t bother