‘A modern horror classic from one of the most exciting writers in the field today’ Starburst Magazine ‘An astonishing debut from Jonathan Sims. A wonderful new twist on an age-old genre. 5 out of 5’ SFXA haunted house tour-de-force from the creator of THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES podcast.GOING UP?A dinner party is held in the penthouse of a multimillion-pound development. All the guests are strangers – … even to their host, the billionaire owner of the building. None of them know why they were selected to receive his invitation. Whether privileged or deprived, they share only one thing in common – they’ve all experienced a shocking disturbance within the building’s walls. By the end of the night, their host is dead, and none of the guests will say what happened. His death has remained one of the biggest unsolved mysteries – until now. But are you ready for their stories?’Combines a creeping sense of unease with all-out gore . . . Nerve-jangling.’ Guardian’A wonderfully creepy climax, hitting that perfect spot of uncanny horror’ Grimdark Magazine’Left me feeling uneasy . . . creeped out, and a little bit horrified. In other words, this was an excellent book’ NetGalley reviewer’Steals your sleep, not only because it’s such a page turner but it is very very creepy . . . Highly recommended’ NetGalley reviewer ‘Chilling and so creepy – perfect reading . . . Even if you don’t usually go for this genre, give THIRTEEN STOREYS a try – you won’t be disappointed!’ NetGalley reviewer ‘This book literally has it all: simply faultless. A majestic tour de force of the imagination’ NetGalley reviewer
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Welcome to Banyan Court, a multimillion-pound building in the heart of London where strange things happen and secrets hide behind every door.
I struggled with the rating I should give this book…
To be honest the last chapter and epilogue makes it an easy four stars book, or even higher. But there are some parts of it that might make you lose focus and put it aside before reaching the end.
So, let’s go back to the beginning.
I had never heard of Jonathan Sims before seeing some Instagram stories where parts of his book were being read, from what I gathered he’s known from some audiobooks that seem to get some praise, something I don’t have that much experience with, and what I heard made me curious.
The idea was simple, a building with thirteen floors and a book with thirteen chapters.
So basically, thirteen short stories.
Well, in a way. These stories are all part of a bigger, more encompassing story, and each of them gives you more information on the big mystery behind it all.
You see, in the prologue you find that the owner of the building, a billionaire named Tobias Fell, was murdered in his penthouse during a dinner party with thirteen other people, some of them tenants in that very same building, were present. The thing is no one can, or will, explain what happened.
And, as you may have guessed, the following chapters concern the people at the dinner party on the days leading to it and what they had gone through. These stories go from straight supernatural, to suspense and mystery, to paranoia and edge-of-your-seat stressful, while we follow an ordinary repair man looking for a problem in the pipes of the building, a writer looking for ghosts, an insomniac mother of a five-year-old, an art dealer and even a seven-year-old girl and her imaginary friend, among others.
And the writer may lose some readers in all these stories, especially those who are looking for a certain kind of story.
While they are all well constructed stories, some are more interesting than others and might seem kind of uninteresting in the great scheme of things. But, when you think of them after reading everything, they really kind of aren’t.
You may think the book is uninteresting at the beginning because it seems disconnected and not going anywhere. However, after the first third of the book you start making connections and you can’t put it down until you find what’s going on. And then you are at the last chapter and when you get to that point, well…
… the only way out is up.
(And so you know… I changed my rating after writing this. It just made sense.)
Very intriguing. Banyan Court is a block of flats – rich flats at the front, poor at the back. The residents are segregated but what unites them is the creepy goings on that afflict some of them. It’s well written – each chapter is told from a different point of view, all distinct enough to be interesting and all nastily creepy (favourites being the art dealer and security guard). Eventually, invitations to a dinner party bring the characters together with the reclusive owner of the block in his penthouse suite and their stories intertwine. The only minor issue I had with this was that I read it over the space of a week (slow for me) and when it came to the final dinner party I had forgotten who some of the characters from earlier chapters were and needed reminding. Despite that (and reading in paperback would have taken seconds to flip back and check) the final showdown was suitably grisly and satisfying.