Five Stories High

Five Stories High #1-5

by Jonathan Oliver (Editor), K.J. Parker, Sarah Lotz

One house, five hauntings, five chilling stories.

Five Stories High is a collection of five novellas each set in the same house – Irongrove Lodge. This five storey Georgian mansion, once a grand detached property, has now been split into five apartments.  This is a building with history, the very bricks and grounds imbued with the pasts of those who have walked these corridors, lived in these rooms.

Five extraordinary writers open the doors, revealing ghosts both past and present in a collection that promises to be as intriguing as it is terrifying.

Featuring novellas by Sarah Lotz, K.J. Parker, Nina Allan, Robert Shearman and Tade Thompson.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy, Anthologies, Mystery, Fiction, Adult

435 pages, Paperback

First published December 6, 2016

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars: Meh.

Two things bugged me about this book. First, I expected horror stories, and the majority of these are more in the weird/dark fantasy/speculative category, not horror. Which is fine, but I adore haunted house stories, and that's what I wanted. (The book's descriptive copy mentions both "ghosts" and "terrifying," but that's not what it delivers.)

Second, the stories seemed to throw in a mention of the house, rather than being ABOUT the house. It felt like the authors wrote the story they wanted to write, and then just mentioned off-hand that the events occurred in Irongrove Lodge, rather than writing about the Lodge itself. Does that make sense?

I'd give this one star, but I did very much enjoy Sarah Lotz's story, the last in this collection (it alone gets 4 stars from me). She wrote about the house itself, and in a very chilling way, and I always enjoy her multi-narrator format.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

[Laurie (barksbooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this ARC from Netgalley. Thanks, Netgalley!

One house, five hauntings, five chilling stories.

Oh the Blurbs. Why do they lie? I promised myself this would be the year of the DNF and I am failing quite spectacularly at that promise. The problem is story collections. I may never read another one again. Story collections are the bane of my reading life this month. I can’t DNF them because I fear that if I do so, I’ll miss out something mind-blowing. This one has two good stories that are chilling and set in a haunted house. The other three? I haven’t a clue how they found their way into this collection.



Maggots by Nina Allan

Maggots started out interesting enough but it soon went off the rails for me. A young college student suspects something is off with his beloved aunt after she goes missing for a brief moment while on vacation. He begins to obsess over thoughts that her body has been inhabited by another. . . Sounds good right? And it was at first but then it got terribly dull. It devolved into his search for the truth. That search leads him to Irongrove Lodge, which isn't haunted in the typical way, ugh, and then he discovers some cosmic weirdness. This kind of story just wasn’t what I was expecting from the blurbage. I didn’t find it chilling or haunting. 3 Stars

Priest’s Hole by K.J. Parker

After my disappointment with story #1, I will admit to skimming Priest’s Hole almost immediately once I realized it too was not about a haunted house but about a shape-shifter instead. If I wanted to read the daily goings-on and meanderings of a day in the life of a shape-shifter I would’ve picked up another book. A sexier book, if truth be told. What on earth is going on here?! I cannot rate this one because I only read enough of it to realize it wasn’t the story I was looking for and I moved on to the next. DNF

It was here that I nearly DNF’d the entire book but figured I’d give it one more shot and I’m glad I did.

Yep, that was not a typo. I’m glad I did!

Gnaw by Tade Thompson

The perfect little family moves into Irongrove Lodge and the husband begins to renovate. Uh oh! You know that is never a good idea! His wife has reservations about the whole thing but the husband does what he wants. This story is a slow, slow burn but boy does it ever start to pay off in the final act. The son starts acting strangely and then the wife starts seeing extremely unsettling visions. I absolutely adored this story. The atmosphere, the creeping dread, the horrific images it has burned into my brain? It’s all awesome and it is the reason I am so glad I did not DNF this book! This was the kind of story I was hoping for when I requested this ARC from Netgalley. It’s a shame they weren’t all written in this vein. 4.5 Stars

The Best Story I can Manage Under the Circumstances Robert Shearman

This is story would fit right in if this were a bizarro collection but this was not marketed as a bizarro collection. So, what we have here is a baby born with only a head. It has no legs, no arms, no torso, no nothing besides the head but it’s alive. Alright. But don’t you worry, soon after another baby is born with just a torso and a little peepee and the two baby parts find each other, hook up and match perfectly. Now what are the odds? Then things switch over to a boy and a strange little door that appears only on his birthday. Was it the same baby boy now fully whole? Don’t ask me because I was skimming at this point. I honestly couldn’t comprehend what was going on here and found it all just a strange jumble of words. Eventually I threw in the towel and DNF’d it. This was not at all what I wanted when I picked up this book.



Skin Deep Sarah Lotz

The collection ends on a good note, at least. Skin Deep is about an older woman who purchases Irongrove Lodge for her boy toy. It's clear a terrible thing happened when the story begins and it is slowly revealed how she earned the nickname “The Butcher”.

This was told from many POV’s which kept things lively and kept me guessing. It was dark with slowly creeping dread and as a bonus I got to watch a slow descent into madness. Great stuff and another 4.5 star story that’s worth a read.

It’s a shame 3 out of these 5 stories felt like they belonged in another collection.


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2017 Horror Reading Challenge Book #4

See this and the rest of the crap I write at my blog.

[Johann (jobis89) · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I received this book in my first Nocturnal Reader's Box, I was very intrigued. It's quite an interesting premise - five different novellas, written by five different authors, but all focusing on the same building, called Irongrove Lodge. I thought the best way to review it was to take each story individually, as some were far better than others...

First up was Maggots by Nina Allan, and this was a very interesting one. It focuses on Willy Randle, a young man of university age, who has a perfectly normal life until one day after a fall, when he begins to have altered perceptions, starting to believe his aunt is not herself. He then decides he must investigate what is happening and therefore delves deeper into the mystery and secrets surrounding Irongrove Lodge. This was a good story to open the book with, in that it sucked me in and left me wanting to know more. A criticism of this story, however, is the writing itself - it was just not very good. Overall, I rated this story 4 stars!

The second story was Priest's Hole by K. J. Parker. This story is about a man who is hired by people who wants to use his unique skill - the ability to change his face. Of course, there are many reasons why you would want to hire such a person, such as providing an alibi, manipulating evidence etc. But then one day, he is stabbed when under one of his guises and he ends up encountering Irongrove Lodge, upon which he begins to question reality. This novella was just BAD. It was all over the place, I felt a bit confused at times, I just didn't enjoy it that much. Even thinking back now, I feel like I can't remember what really happened and I only finished this a few days ago - truly forgettable. It even reminded me of House of Leaves at some parts. 2 stars from me.

The middle story was a vast improvement from its predecessor and it was Gnaw by Tade Thompson. Now this story was amazing! Tara and Harry buy and move into the beautiful Irongrove Lodge, along with their two children, but they are not the only inhabitants of this house... Creepy written messages appear, as well as sounds of children laughing and running around. Gah, even writing about this is starting to freak me out. I don't want to say too much, but if you get the chance - read it! This was a great story, it even left me with a restless night. I really need to stop reading before bed... This one clearly gets 5 stars!

The next story was The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances by Robert Shearman. This story was just insane, it opens with a mother giving birth to a baby born without a body - so basically just a head. For his first birthday, she finds him a torso, and then follows the limbs. The narration then switches quickly to a young boy who is drawn into an strange and extraordinary place through a door in his bedroom wall. There he encounters a storyteller, who longs to tell him haunted house tales and kind of becomes a surrogate dad. He also shares a bed with a girl who is essentially put into the sister role. This story was just... batshit crazy. I will not forget it for a while! I'd give this one 3 stars.

The final story in the collection was Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz. Malika and Robin move into their new house, thinking it will be a real fixer-upper. However, Robin becomes a little too obsessed with renovating their new abode, it almost gets under his skin, you could say... The story is told from the objective of a number of different characters, and it was AWESOME. I loved how the story was initially told from the perspective of people like the estate agent, their friends, co-workers etc, before "The Butcher" herself, Malika, tells her side of the story. It was so creepy that I just blasted through it, as I couldn't put the book down. There was also a shout-out to my girl, Jillian Michaels, which I may have got a tad too excited about. This was a great story, well-told. Already planning to look out for more work by Sarah Lotz. My favourite story in the entire collection - 5 stars!!

Overall, this collection of stories was pretty enjoyable, with 4 out of 5 being very good. I'm so glad this book was included in last month's Nocturnal Readers box as I probably would never have found it otherwise - so thanks, guys! I'd love to give the book 5 stars, but that second story Priest's Hole was just so awful that I feel like I have to deduct a star... so it's 4 stars from me!

[K.J. Charles]

Five stories all set at the same address (not the same house, there's no crossover). The house theme means they all have a domestic horror sort of feel--abuse, fearing the people closest to you-- as well as the supernatural.

I bought this for Tade Thompson's story, which was terrific and compellingly horrible. The multi narrator story by Sarah Lotz is also fantastic, will seek out more by this author. I found the KJ Parker a bit thin by his standards, and neither of the others worked for me: lots of sploshy body horror rather than building atmosphere.

[Mindi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this very interesting collection in the January Nocturnal Readers Box.

Let me just stop right here, and tell everyone who loves the horror genre that this subscription box rocks, and is a total must have for fans of scary stories. The book selections have been outstanding every month, and the bookish swag is amazing. Check them out at their website: The Nocturnal Reader's Box

Now, as for this collection of novellas, some were OK, and two were outstanding, so I've rounded up and given the entire collection 4 stars. Five Stories High is a collection of 5 novellas written by 5 different authors, but all involving a single dwelling called Irongrove Lodge. The standouts for me where Gnaw by Tade Thompson (which, quite honestly is worth the price of the book alone), and Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz. I'm not going to give anything away about either of these, since I always like to go into short stories knowing as little as possible. Let me just say that I woke up in the middle of the night after reading Gnaw, and actually felt sort of creeped out.

The first novella, Maggots by Nina Allan, was OK but nothing mind blowing. Robert Sherman's offering The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances is totally bizarre and almost comical. It's definitely one that you just have to laugh and go along with. The weakest story in the collection is Priest's Hole by K.J. Parker, mainly because it becomes rather vague very early on, and I'm not entirely sure what happened. Plus, quite a bit of it is about math.

Overall, Five Stories High is an uneven collection, but completely worth it, even if you only buy or borrow it to read the fantastic story Gnaw. I'm still a bit creeped out by that one.

[Blair]

Five Stories High is a little like David Mitchell's Slade House, if each chapter was written by a different author. The central figure is 'the dwelling (entity?) known as Irongrove Lodge'. This form-shifting house seems to exist outside time and space; capable of choosing who it appears to, changing location, resurrecting itself after being burnt down, and being much bigger on the inside than the five stories you see on the outside.

The first story, 'Maggots' by Nina Allan, is nothing short of brilliant. (It's because of Allan that I rescued Five Stories from the depths of my to-read list in the first place, having loved her story in the anthology New Fears.) It follows Willy, who's doing alright in life – he has good relationships with his family and girlfriend, he's doing well at university – until he becomes convinced that his Aunt Claire has been abducted and replaced with an imposter. Despite the pleas of his loved ones, Willy can't let go of this obsession, and it takes him down a dark path that will eventually lead to a dealer in murder memorabilia whose business is based out of Irongrove. This is an ingenious way to approach the theme, so much more imaginative than anything else in the book. The protagonist is fully realised. The story is replete with literary and pop-culture references and a deep knowledge and understanding of what makes horror work. It's very subtle and deceptively ordinary, yet there is a scene, and a particular piece of description, here that has stuck with me vividly and still makes me cringe when I think about it. The more of Allan's short stories I read, the more I am convinced she is an absolute master of the genre.

I started off being interested in the second story, 'Priest's Hole' by K.J. Parker, but it soon lost me. The premise is intriguing: the narrator can change his appearance at will, and earns his keep by impersonating people (often under dubious circumstances). He lives in a flat in Irongrove along with his partner, an artist; it soon becomes clear that she has left him, or perhaps disappeared. This has all the ingredients of a good yarn, but I soon grew sick of the narrator's weird (half-satirical? meant to be funny?) voice, the smug self-referential asides, his 'see above' and 'passim'. Plus it all seems very flimsy when compared to 'Maggots'. For example, the relationship between the protagonist and his father in this story has all the depth of a comedy sketch, while Allan effortlessly fleshes out Willy's relationships with his parents, girlfriend, aunt and cousins in about the same number of pages.

I had a similar experience with the third story, 'Gnaw' by Tade Thompson: I found the beginning engaging, then hit a few bumps and began to lose interest, and by the end I was skipping pages. This is a more traditional narrative, which has a young family – Harry, Tara and their kids Cory and Adrienne – moving into Irongrove and renovating it. In classic horror-movie fashion, the children are soon acting weird, especially Cory, who takes to writing hateful, disturbingly adult diatribes all over any paper he can get his hands on. This is a cliched, done-to-death setup, and it doesn't really do anything to transcend that. The climactic scenes are too daft to be scary. On top of that it is uncomfortably sexist in a way it just doesn't need to be. Case in point #1: when Harry's inner monologue describes Tara as his 'fuck-me blonde wife'. What the hell does that even mean? Case in point #2: a heavy-handed scene that's presumably supposed to make the reader realise there's a connection between Tara and Louise, but actually just makes it sound like Harry is sexually attracted to a child.

The fourth story is 'The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances' by Robert Shearman. When I came to this and found, on the first page, '[the couple] were well suited because the man was very smart and the woman was very pretty', I'd had quite enough sexism for one book and couldn't bring myself to go any further. Also, the story is written as though it's being told to kids, which is not my jam. Sorry, #4, you could have been good, but I was all bad-storied out.

I'd probably have abandoned the book altogether at this point, if not for the fact that the fifth story is by Sarah Lotz, whose novels I've enjoyed in the past. Her contribution is 'Skin Deep'. A woman named Malika has been convicted of the gruesome murder of her boyfriend, and we hear numerous sides of the story from people who knew or met her. Lotz, as I already knew, is excellent at creating voices, and each of her characters has a distinct presence. The plot is pretty gory, but also a lot of fun.

The connecting narrative, by editor Jonathan Oliver, is also good. Cut out stories #2–4 and give us more of that, I say. Or, better still, just have Nina Allan write the entire thing.

Five Stories High is a good concept in theory, but in practice, it's patchy to say the least. It also shows both the advantages and the pitfalls of putting the best story first: it might make you want to keep reading, but it'll also make everything else look terrible.

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[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I buddy read this with two of my good friends from BG, Johann and Mindi which was way fun. All three of us got Nocturnal Reader's Boxes and this book came in the box. There are 5 short stories in this book. The first one, Maggots, was OK. The second one, Priest's Hole I didn't care for at all. But the third story, Gnaw is worth buying the whole book. It's so unsettling. Even the writing was weird and foreign to me. The story and imagery totally got under my skin. I loved it! The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances is the 4th story and it was so WEIRD! It had me laughing and nervous at the same time. Skin Deep was another fantastic story. So overall I very much enjoyed this collection of stories.

[Rob Twinem · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am perplexed by this story and think that the content is almost too clever for the events that they purport to represent.
 
Irongrove Lodge is a house of mystery and intrigue where five separate happenings or ghostly chilling stories unfold so says the blurb.......What actually unfolds is well nothing!! words and events happen and escalate past my eyes and mind with no particular order, sense or meaning. So frustrated did I become with the style of writing and the content that (for my own sanity) I desisted from reading, just before the midpoint having attempted to digest (and failing) two of the novellas within the five.
 
I find it even hard to explain what it was I had actually read? In the second of the two stories the narrator, a shapeshifter, ( a person or being with the ability to change their physical form at will) markets himself as in individual who, for a price,  will supply you the client with an alibi. In addition to this he "becomes" you by physically adopting your appearance and character. Centered around this unusual occupation are thoughts and observations on the narrator's wife (an artist of some repute who has deserted him) and his father, a mathematical genius and the author/originator of a calculus/mathematical solution which has greatly added to his credibility and fame (until an Indian professor disputes the theory) During these events our narrator purchases a suit of armour (don't ask me why) and finds solace and content within a small room in his flat at Irongrove Lodge....ah Irongrove Lodge....remember it was the subject of this collection of 5 novellas.
 
Having requested this book from netgalley I was excited about the possibility of reading five separate ghostly adventures around the beautifully named, the historical and stately, Irongrove Lodge. What I read was a confusing literary mess with the actual Lodge playing a secondary role to the rambling and overfed egos of so called writers masquerading as horror authors! A reader must be honest and fair in his thoughts when reviewing, especially if he received that book free in return for an honest review.  His thoughts and words must be impartial and not be influenced as the recipient of a "gratis" copy. I rarely dismiss a book at the midway point, but on this occasion the text, form and content proved much too confusing and abstract for me to continue. A great disappointment and a book I do not recommend to anyone!

[Leah Bayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This year, I'm trying to stop all of the impulse-reading I do. Sticking only to my owned but not read/tbr books. Because usually impulse reads are shit (see: The Twilight Wife). But this... this was an amazing impulse read. When I read the synopsis I knew it was basically meant for me. 5 novellas by 5 authors about a house reminiscent of House of Leaves? Yes please.

I really loved this book. It's a representation of the best that modern weird fiction can do. There's a sense of unease that isn't just from the individual stories: it's truly the cohesive whole that makes this great. Because the stories don't all fit together. They all take place in Irongrove Lodge, yes, but the timelines and layout of the house directly contradict each other. Yet we have in-between sections cataloguing the history of the house and our narrator assures us they are all true. Somehow, this house is in different places and different times in different shapes. As I said, very HoL!

Not all of the stories worked for me, which is the only reason this didn't get 5 stars. I am absolutely obsessed with 3 of them ("Maggots," "Gnaw," & "Skin Deep"), and I enjoyed the bizarro-style "The Best Story I Could Manage Under The Circumstances." But I felt like "Priest's Hole" wasn't as strong either thematically or writing-wise to stand up to the other 4. It was honestly pretty forgettable, while the other stories are so memorable (though in different ways). But really, that's my only complaint! And "Priest's Hole" isn't a bad story by any means, it's just not quite on the level of the others.

[Icy_Space_Cobwebs Join the Penguin Resistance! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review: FIVE STORIES HIGH by Various Authors

FIVE STORIES HIGH is a themed collection, stories from five authors, interwoven into a framework entitled "Notes from Irongrove Lodge." There exists on a fairly quiet street in London a large residence...or it doesn't exist. At times, it can be located by some few individuals; at other occasions, it can't be found. Sometimes its title is Irongrove Lodge, at other times Greystone Lodge. Sometimes it's a private residence, at other times an apartment building of five flats; sometimes a horrible asylum. It is also a building whose dimensions frequently change, and it is a passage to the void.

One thing is for certain: the stories contained in FIVE STORIES HIGH will definitely boggle the mind.

[Maryam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review first published on The Curious SFF Reader

Five Stories High is an anthology edited by Jonathan Oliver that features five horror novellas written by five different authors all set in the same house, a huge mansion called Irongrove Lodge. The stories are loosely linked together by interludes written by Jonathan Oliver. However, since it took me several weeks to read this, I didn’t really pay attention to the interludes and I read the stories as standalones.

I am not a huge horror fan, I don’t especially like horror movies but oddly, I like horror short stories quite a bit and I would like to read more of them so when I saw that Solaris was coming out with this anthology, I was very intrigued. I was especially looking forward reading Tade Thompson and Nina Allan’s stories.

As usual with anthologies, not every single story is going to work for you but, as anthologies go, this one was very strong. Two of the stories were outstanding, one was really good and the other two were interesting enough to be worth a read. My two favorite were Gnaw by Tade Thompson and Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz and I would highly recommend this anthology for those two alone.



Individual Reviews


Maggots by Nina Allan 4*

Willy Randle is a happy young man raised by a loving family, he has a wonderful and caring girlfriend, he is studying at university. He’s promised to a great future.. until the day his aunt, Claire, vanishes for a few instants. When she comes back, Willy is persuaded that something is wrong with her somehow, but he’s the only one who seems to see it. He then starts a quest to find who or what his aunt really is.

It was fascinating little story, extremely well paced and hard to put down. It felt very different from The Harlequin, another novella written by Nina Allan that I read and reviewed last year, the writing was as good but the tone was completely different. It was slow paced but it never was boring, on the contrary. Subtle and eerie, it is definitely one of the best novella I read this year.



Priest’s Hole by K.J. Parker 3*

Following a character who can shapeshift and whose work is to pretend to be other people providing them with alibi when they need them, this story was my least favorite of the collection. Mind you, I wasn’t expecting much from it after reading two other novellas by Parker and I think that I enjoyed this novella the most out of his other works.

Parker is just “not my style”, I find that all his main characters tend to look the same and I am not necesseraly a fan of his writing style. I find it a bit all over the place and his pacing is definitely odd to say the least. Also I think the plot of this story was reminisent of The Last Witness in the sense that both main characters seems to loose their own identity toward the end. If you enjoyed The Last Witness, Priest’s Hole is going to a good read, if you didn’t well, don’t go into this story expecting a lot from it.


Gnaw by Tade Thompson 5*

Tara and Larry decide to buy and move in the house of their dream, Irongrove Lodge, with their two children. However, they soon realize that something really weird is happening in their house and that they might not be the only ones living here.

Sounds like déjà-vu ? However, what could have been a “I read that a hundred times before” story was so very well done that it really managed to grab my attention. Tade Thompson is a terrific writer, the writing, the pacing and the characters were on point. The relationships between all the family members felt real and I could identify with all the characters, including the “bad guys” which is pretty rare for me with this genre. This story is definitely one of the highlights of this collection.


The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances by Robert Shearman 3*

I don’t even know how to explain this one actually because it is pretty messed up. I will just say that it begins with a woman giving birth to a head.

Do I really need to say more? This story is insane, maybe a bit too much for me but at least, I can’t say that I ever read a similar story before. However, it didn’t grab me as much as the other stories and it is probably because it is a bit all over the place pacing-wise. I would still recommend it because as I said, it surprised me quite a bit, it’s the first time I read a Shearman story, but I definitely want to read other things by him now.


Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz 5*

This story has a very interesting structure because it is told from the perspective of many side characters and it is mainly following the aftermath of a crime committed in Irongrove Lodge. Malika and Robin just moved there when Robin started to get a bit too obsessed with it, so much so in fact, that it just got under his skin. Literally.

Another great story, I read this one very quickly because I really wanted to know what was going to happen next and, even if, in a way it was very predictable, the execution was so good that I didn’t mind at all!



So overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the collection, even if the stories were all set in the same place, they were all very different form one another and I definitely think that it is worth a read even if you don’t usually read horror stories! 🙂



I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Solaris and Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

[Irene Well Worth A Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

When is a wood louse not just a wood louse? The answer to that is in the first story "Maggots" by Nina Allan.
A happy, family oriented young man, home visiting from college begins to suspect that his aunt is an imposter after she briefly goes missing and then reappears somehow changed. He is the only one who notices this difference. There was a delicious sense of foreboding that permeated this story from start to finish, made even more intense by the fact that I actually cared about this family and was hoping things would turn out well for them. I would give this story 5 stars

"Priest's Hole" by K.J. Parker is a story about a shape shifter who makes his living by becoming other people. It got off to a slow start, and did eventually pick up a bit but it just didn't grab my interest that well. Not to say it was a bad story, it was just not my type.


"Gnaw" by Tade Thompson
Harry and Tara move into the house with their 2 children Adrienne and Corey. The spooky happenings begin almost immediately, and it's not just the children who see and hear things that should not be there. This was one of my favorite stories in the book, again 5 stars from me.

"The Best Story I Can Manage Under The Circumstances" by Robert Shearman
I don't know what to say about this. It was like some kind of bizarro fiction. It begins with a very strange pregnancy and gets more weird from there.

"Skin Deep" By Sarah Lotz
This was a story of accused murderer Malika "the butcher" told from multiple points of view. When Malika and Robin meet they feel an instant connection. It doesn't matter to them that she is 20 years his senior or that he doesn't have a cent to his name. When they decide to move in together and he wants to live in Irongrove Lodge, Malika buys the apartment to make him happy even though she feels there is something off about it. If only she had trusted her gut!
This was in my opinion the shining star of this book, the absolute best saved for last.

I received an advance copy for review.

[Mariana]

I DNF this book (read 46%). I know it might be unfair to the other authors in this anthology, but the first two stories weren't enjoyable, I was actually getting bored and desperate. I was expecting to find classic haunted house and ghost tales, but instead found something like weird, speculative fantasy. Definetely not what I was hoping for.

I am that kind of person that never puts down a book, no matter how much I'm disliking it. However, one of my reading resolutions for 2017 is to stop doing that. There are so many great books waiting for you to discover out there, that spending time reading something you're not enjoying at all seems pointless.

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.

[Sue Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five Stories High by k j Parker is a horror and general fiction (adult) read.

One house, five hauntings, five chilling stories.

Five Stories High is a collection of five novellas each set in the same house – Irongrove Lodge. This five storey Georgian mansion, once a grand detached property, has now been split into five apartments. This is a building with history, the very bricks and grounds imbued with the pasts of those who have walked these corridors, lived in these rooms.
OMG. Fantastic read with brilliant characters. Do not read alone. Give me the chills. Highly recommended. 5*. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced copy of this book from netgalley.

[Stan James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The five novellas in this collection all tell stories either centered around or at least featuring (sometimes very tangentially) the Gothic residence known as Irongrove Lodge, with narrative bridges connecting the stories together in a manner of sorts.

Irongrove Lodge is a nasty old place, full of tortured ghosts and malevolence that drives its occupants to madness and worse. Its many victims prove that a good design treatment on a hell house just leaves you with a nicer-looking hell house.

I enjoyed four of the five stories quite a bit, while one of them left me a bit unmoved. The linking narrative also didn't really click for me and probably could have been excised altogether. The passages are brief enough that you can get through them quickly, though.

"Maggots" features a protagonist who may be afflicted by imposter syndrome--or his aunt could actually be taken over by some alien entity. It's appropriately weird and yet thoroughly grounded at the same time. At one point Will, the young man who feels he may be standing precariously on the edge between worlds, writes down possible explanations for what he perceives as his aunt's strange behavior, ending with "I have lost my mind." The whole thing is enjoyable in how the characters behave and react in the most ordinary of ways to to each other and events both mundane and...less so.

"Priest's Hole" is about a man who discovers he can shape-shift thanks to a rather special room in Irongrove Lodge. He ends up with an agent he never sees who finds him jobs and it gets complicated and messy from there. The shape shifter narrates the story and frequently apologizes for being melodramatic and stupid. It's a neat take on shape-shifting.

"Gnaw" is a straight-up ghost story, in which a young family moves into Irongrove Lodge, the husband determined to remodel it and make it a home for his wife and two children. Various ghosts and ghost-like entities have other plans, most of them violent and disturbing. The remodeling does not go well. This is one of those tales in which you will find yourself constantly muttering to yourself, "Why won't they leave?!" but still manages to keep on the side of the characters behaving believably.

"The Best Story I Could Manage Under the Circumstances" is a surreal trip through magically-appearing doors in bedroom walls and ceilings, in which a young boy is ensnared by a demented storyteller. The whole thing is presented in a very droll manner, as a kind of modern fairy tale, and while it is a triumph of style, I found I didn't care about the characters and nearly stopped caring about how things would turn out. If this style works for you, however, it may make your socks roll up and down in delight. My socks didn't really move much.

The final story, "Skin Deep" is told as a series of vignettes from the perspectives of those involved, a format author Sarah Lotz used to good effect in her novel The Three and again uses skillfully here. This is another remodeling-gone-amok tale, in which a May-December couple moves into one of the flats at Irongrove Lodge, where Robin, the younger of the two, becomes obsessed with redecorating the place to the detriment of his wife's bank account, their marriage and his sanity. The remodeling again does not go well, though the cleaners manage to get most of the nastiest stuff cleaned up.

Given the subject matter of most stories, the tone in the majority of them is surprisingly light, yet with the exception of "The Best Story..." the presentation never feels glib. "The Best Story" is all about being glib and weird and gross (you may not want to pass along this story to someone expecting a baby--trust me on this).

While I would overall recommend Five Stories High,/> the marketing of it is deceptive, as only two of the stories are really ghost stories at all. They also happen to be the only two that really make Irongrove Lodge a significant part of the narrative, rather than something shoehorned in to technically fit the theme of the collection.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

If not for Tade Thompson, I never would have read this book. When I was looking for the rest of his books after reading Molly Southbourne, this one bubbled up, and when I saw that K.J. Parker was also a contributor, I knew I was going to have to read it. Two of my new favorite authors writing ghost stories? Sign me up!

The book features five stories, all interconnected through a single house, where strange things happen. The editor weaves a sixth story among the rest, through interludes, but the stories all occur in the same place. Nina Allen introduces us to Irongrove Lodge through her novella Maggots, which is a disconcerting look at how difficult it would be to replace someone in your life. It's an effective piece, and it highlights how focusing a lot of attention on the ordinary and mundane can raise the tension, as the reader asks himself, "What's so important about this plain old stuff that the author wants us to see it in such great detail?"

Parker's story follows, and could easily have been set among his other novellas featuring Saloninus. Priest's Hole is, as far as I know, Parker's only non-fantasy work under that name, even though it reads exactly like his fantasy work. That it's set in the modern day is so weird, though. Parker still sets up his story for a nice, unexpected dunk shot, but where those endings felt so profound and emotional in Purple and Gold and Mightier than the Sword, here it felt anticlimactic and confusing. The motivation of the character didn't fit with his personality, and I found myself questioning why he would do what he did.

Thompson's story, Gnaw, is smack in the center of the collection, and is easily the best of the bunch. It's creepy af, and is full of foreboding atmosphere and disturbing imagery. I think it helped that I read this story all in one sitting (the others took me a couple of days at least to finish), but it reminded me a lot of what worked so well in Molly Southbourne. I'd be totally fine if Thompson decided to focus just on horror for the rest of his career.

The next story, The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances, was by a new-to-me author named Robert Shearman. It's a strange story, reminiscent of the "new wave" of horror, but here the surrealism of the story eludes me. The story feels random and pointless, but at the same time, it feels clear that the author had something in mind for this story by writing it. What it is, though, is beyond me. I can't even remember many of the details, save for it having an irreverent tone.

Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz concludes the collection, and it reminded me a lot of Wylding Hall, in that it's a recollection of past events by several different people. Lotz captures the different voices well, and does a good job of having us believe the victim is innocent. She gets an assist from the other stories in the volume, since by now we know Irongrove Lodge is up to something, enough so that this would have read differently had it been the first story in the collection. The story fails a bit by bringing in the character everyone else is talking about and giving us her perspective, but it works well in every other respect.

The linking story, written by the editor, doesn't add anything to the collection, and I feel like the book would have been better off without it. There's also a lot less haunting than I would have expected based on how the book is marketed, but the stories still have a disconcerting edge, especially Thompson's contribution. I'm not sure how well these stories would read separately, since the later stories seem to build off of what's come before, but they're all available individually if you just want to read the stories by the authors you know you like.

[Dev · Rating 3 out of 5]

The more anthologies I read the more frustrated I get with the entire concept, but this sounded like something unique and original so I thought I would give it a try. The problem with this collection is that taken separately these are five pretty decent horror stories. They are perhaps often more psychological than I would like and a few of them take awhile to get going, but overall they are fairly unique and interesting and good short reads. Unfortunately they just don't really fit together the way that they should into the 'theme' of the anthology.

I thought this was going to be like ...I guess five different stories about people living in this house at the same time more or less. Like each story would take place on a different floor and they would all be experiencing either different hauntings or the same haunting in different ways. Instead it seems like the authors just wrote five random stories and went 'oh yeah and they all take place in this same house at some point'. Also apparently the house literally moves around and changes shape and stuff but it's mostly around London and always has five floors?

I don't know. I would have been interested in the moving / changing shape thing if they did a kind of House of Leaves story with it, but as it was I was just not really sure why the house was so important to the stories. They really almost could have taken place anywhere and there was no connecting theme with the type of hauntings or events either. A good idea but definitely lacking in the execution.

[Tomasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very impressive showcase of talents, with K. J. Parker doing very well while away from his comfort zone, Nina Allan creepy as all get out, Shearman doing the best Shearman he can under the circumstances, &c. A fine read, altogether, perhaps marred a bit by the framing device which audibly creaks as the five novellas stretch it to bursting. But never mind that noise, it's what one would expect from an old and possibly haunted house, after all.

[Christine Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag as is often the case with this sort of anthology, but stories by Tade Thompson and Sarah Lotz stand out

[Seregil of Rhiminee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published at Risingshadow.

Five Stories High (edited by Jonathan Oliver) is an excellent literary horror story anthology. It's a themed anthology containing five novellas set in the same house, Irongrove Lodge, where all kinds of strange and unexpected things happen to people who live there or merely come for a brief visit.

In this anthology, all of the authors - Nina Allan, J.K. Parker, Tade Thompson, Robert Shearman and Sarah Lotz - do their best to captivate and thrill readers with atmospheric, original and extremely well written stories that have a strong focus on creepiness and unsettling atmosphere. They aim to entertain and terrify their readers and they succeed in it, because when you pick up this book and begin to read it, you'll be hooked by the stories.

If you come to this anthology expecting to find cheap thrills, I'm sorry to disappoint you by saying that you won't find anything like that here. Instead, you'll find plenty of quality and lots of old-fashioned creepiness. This is an anthology that has an emphasis on atmospheric storytelling and literary prose. It stands out among other similar kind of anthologies by having much more depth and substance than them.

I consider Five Stories High to be one of the absolute highlights of the past year. It's a fascinatingly old-fashioned yet modern horror story anthology with fascinating stories which prove that when you have enough imagination you can write stories about weird and haunted houses in a memorable and original way. The stories, although classic in nature, have a sharp modern edge to them.

This anthology contains the following stories:

- Maggots by Nina Allan
- Priest's Hole by K.J. Parker
- Gnaw by Tade Thompson
- The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances by Robert Shearman
- Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz

Each of these stories can be read as a standalone story, but the linking texts (Notes on Irongrove Lodge by the editor Jonathan Oliver) connect them. They provide a strong backbone to the stories and emphasise the overall strange atmosphere.

Although the authors have distinct voices of their own, their voices fit well together. Their different writing styles bring freshness to this anthology.

Here's more information and my thoughts about the stories:

Maggots by Nina Allan:

- Ah, what a pleasure it was to read this story! I loved the author's engaging writing style and her way of writing about the happenings, because everything about this story felt spellbinding and it had a fascinatingly unsettling atmosphere. I was impressed by the nuanced characterisation, because the protagonist had an interesting life and a bit different kind of problems.
- In this story, Will is a bit frightened and unnerved by his noticing of how his Aunty Claire has suddenly become a different person. Aunty Claire appears to be normal, but there's something about her that is not quite right. Soon Will finds out that he may suffer from a physiological disorder, which affects his way of thinking about Aunty Claire, but he doesn't fully believe in it. As time goes by he begins to research things and soon he hears about Greystone Lodge...
- The author writes excellently about Will's relationship with his Aunty Claire. It was interesting to read about how Will noticed that her Aunty Claire had changed after she went missing for a while during a trip to York and was not the same person anymore. This had a huge effect on Will's life, because he began to think of all kinds of things and found out about a well-kept secret.
- A beautifully written story with a chilling touch of cosmic horror and strangeness.

Priest's Hole by K.J. Parker:

- This is a story about a genuine and professional shapeshifter who can change his blood group, DNA and appearance. There are certain limits to his abilities, but he can do almost anything. He has an agent who gets him jobs and sends him details of each job. One day he agrees to do a well-paying alibi job, but it goes terribly wrong, because a man tries to kill him...
- I liked the author's way of writing about the shapeshifter and his life, because he wrote captivatingly about several things ranging from the shapeshifter's private life to his work. It was also interesting to read about the agent and how she behaved.
- This story has a satisfyingly slow pace, because the author doesn't rush with things and lets things develop at their own pace.
- An excellent and very atmospheric story with a touch of noir and urban fantasy.

Gnaw by Tade Thompson:

- In this story, Harry and Tara move into a new house with their children, Adrienne and Cory. One day when Tara goes to the shopping centre, she notices that her son has written something strange and malignant in a book which he brought with him. A bit later Cory is accused of writing more vile things. This is, however, only the beginning of a chain of strange events...
- It was fascinating to read about what kind of a past Harry had and how it affected his marriage to Tara, because he had spent time in prison for something that he hadn't done. I also enjoyed reading about what the children experienced and how they felt about things.
- The author explores the familiar theme of haunting in a surprisingly entertaining and original way. I found this story to be excellent because of the gradually deepening atmosphere.
- A wonderfully entertaining and well written ghost story that has a feel of classic ghost fiction to it.

The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances by Robert Shearman:

- This mesmerising story begins with a bizarre fairy tale kind of a chapter and then transforms into something else in the next chapter. I think it's fair to say that this is the strangest story in this anthology, because it changes as it begins to unfold, but doesn't lose its freshness and originality.
- In my opinion, the author has managed to reach a satisfying level of strangeness here and has created something unique, because it's been a while since I've read this kind of horror fiction. I enjoyed everything about this story, because I found it excellent.
- I won't write about what happens in this story in fear of revealing too many spoilers, but I'll mention that what happens between the boy and the man who tells him stories is truly interesting and also a bit unsettling. These scenes were simply brilliant.
- A fascinatingly written strange story that will be of interest to everyone who loves weird tales.

Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz:

- The previous story had quite an interesting structure, but this story has an even more unusual structure due to the author's way of telling the story through various monologues. The author has come up with a story that consists of several sections in which different people tell what has happened and how they feel about it.
- Skin Deep is a story about events leading up to a crime and its aftermath. It feels a bit like a blend of strange fiction, noir fiction and mystery fiction, because the author delivers her readers a strong vision of a relationship between an older woman and a younger man (Malika and Robin) and tells what happens to them.
- I enjoyed reading about the relationship between Malika and Robin, because the author wrote well about how it began to change when they moved into the flat and Robin wanted to renovate it.
- A well written account of a shocking crime.

Maggots by Nina Allan has all the signs of intelligent storytelling that I expect to find in literary speculative fiction. It's a satisfying and thought-provoking slice of real life that has gone a bit awry. I think it's only fair to say that Maggots is the strongest story in this anthology and one of the author's best stories, because she explores such themes as identity and isolation in a realistic yet uncanny way. I was positively surprised to find elements of eldritch cosmic horror in this story, because the author has a her own kind of powerful vision of cosmic horror. (By the way, if you're a newcomer to Nina Allan's stories, this story is an excellent entry point to her fiction.)

The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances by Robert Shearman is also a story that I find deeply satisfying and rewarding. It has everything one could ever hope to find in a strange story and more. Gnaw by Tade Thompson made a huge impression on me, because the author's vision of a ghost story felt original. Priest's Hole by K.J. Parker and Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz are also fantastic stories, because they're something a bit different.

Each of the stories has an excellent atmosphere, because the authors seem adept at creating a creeping atmosphere and maintaining it throughout their stories. Because I've always loved good old-fashioned horror fiction and ghost stories that have plenty of creepiness, I found these stories compelling - there was just the right amount of classic creepy feel to them.

Irongrove Lodge is a perfect setting for these unsettling stories, because it's an old five storey Georgian mansion, which has been split into five apartments. This kind of old mansions intrigue me in horror fiction, because they allow authors to explore history, past happenings, hauntings, manifestations, mental health and fear in an atmospheric way. In this anthology, the authors reveal interesting things about Irongrove Lodge and its past, because they tell what kind of a place it is to the characters and how they feel about what they experience there. Each of the characters has their own specific feel about Irongrove Lodge - they may see weird things, they may get a feeling that there's something slightly wrong about it or it changes them.

The stories in this anthology are akin to classic weird tales that rely on terrifying readers with creepiness instead of action. If you're like me and enjoy reading stories which develop gradually and in which authors slowly build up atmosphere towards the end you'll find this anthology thoroughly enjoyable. When I read these stories, I noticed that they contained echoes of such authors as Robert Aickman, Joel Lane and M.R. James.

Before I write the final words of this review, I'll mention that this anthology left me wanting more. I was so taken by the stories that I would've liked to read more about Irongrove Lodge and what happens to people there.

Five Stories High is a dark, excellent and atmospheric horror story anthology that fully satisfies the needs of readers who are interested in literary horror stories and enjoy slow-burning quiet horror that creeps up on them. I'm sure that many horror readers will find a lot to love in this anthology, because it contains quality stories that differ from mainstream horror stories.

Highly recommended!

[Gayle Pace · Rating 4 out of 5]

MY THOUGHTS

The book brings the reader five eerie and haunting tales all with the same setting, a five story Georgian mansion. This mansion used to be a grand place but through time it has started to deteriorate. It has been converted into five apartments. Many have come and gone during the duration of this grand ole' mansion. The past have stayed when the occupants have left. The reader gets five haunting tales from five authors in a mansion with five floors and five apartments. Could the number five have a meaning? You get Maggots by Nina Allan, Priest's Hole by KJ Parker, Gnaw by Take Thompson, The Best story I Can Manage Under The Circumstances by Robert Shearman and Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz. You also get notes on Irongrove Lodge. The author gives you a line between reality and the unknown, light and darkness, calm and fear. There are twists and turns on each story of the mansion and in each apartment. Each occupant has his or her own deep dark past and present, each have their own hauntings and each story of the mansion has it's own story. All are strange encounters of the occupants and all will make the reader sit on the edge of his seat. We all love horror to a certain degree and according to your personal taste for the level of horror, the authors give level for everyone. Some will love, some will not, but all are worth reading. The method of writing is a bit different than most so it took me a little while to get used to it but once I did, I started to enjoy. I especially liked the Notes On Irongrove Lodge, giving background and specifics on the grand ole' mansion. Was the mansion a place for punishment? Where some came and never left, some left and never were seen again. The occupants never spoke of what happened or what was seen in the mansion. To the outsiders it was just an ole' run down mansion where some were just drawn into the land of insanity. The authors give you the feeling that maybe Irongrove Lodge existed in the minds of those who entered the open doors. Irongrove Lodge is supposed to be there but it seems to be out of the reach of one hand. You are also left with the feeling that after the fifth floor, the stairs continue even though there are only five stories. What is above the fifth floor and where does it lead? These authors have given some terrifying stories of five occupants, five stories, five apartments, and five levels (possibly more, it's all in your mind). The mind can play tricks and in this book, it does. What a combined group of stories for the reader who loves that line between reality and the other side. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves that line. You will get the suspense, the thrill, the unknown and so much more. Decide for yourself, if Irongrove Lodge really exists or is it a state of mind?

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the authors and Night Owl Reviews and voluntarily decided to review it.

[Lisa Lantrip · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories in this collection were so completely different. I can't really review this book as a whole, so I have reviewed each story separately and averaged my ratings for each for a 2.75.

Story 1 – Maggot – 2.75 – This was a very weird story. It seemed a bit disjointed, especially at the beginning. I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing style, either. However, either it changed as the story went on, or it grew on me. In the beginning I kept getting taken out of the story and focusing on how it was written, but later on that quit happening. I kept reading and wanted to know what happened, so I can’t say it was bad, but I don’t think it’s memorable and I don’t have any urge to read it again or recommend it to people. Overall, it was ok.

Story 2 – Priest’s Hole – 2.5 - This story was all over the place. It definitely wasn’t scary. There were some odd grammatical choices that I wasn’t sure if there was a reason for them or they were just mistakes. I read the whole story and I didn’t hate it, but I don’t think I’ll remember it in a week. I just think maybe I didn’t get it.

Story 3 – Gnaw – 3.25 – This was a pretty creepy ghost story. A family moves into a house and soon learns all of the many ways it is haunted. It was pretty much what I think of when I think of a short haunted house/ghost story, and I like ghost stories.

Story 4 – The Best I can Manage Under the Circumstances – 1.75 – Um. I don’t even know what to say. What did I read here? This was the weirdest most bizarre thing I have ever read. There is probably some kind of deep meaning in there if you want to deconstruct it, but I don’t think I want to spend any more time in this author’s head. I gave it higher than a one, because I was compelled to finish it, no matter how strange it got, and unfortunately, I think it will stick in my head, but I certainly don’t ever want to read it again and won’t recommend it to anyone. Weird and gross.

Story 5 – Skin Deep – 3.5 – I really enjoyed this story! It was absolutely my favorite in the book. It was told by way of interviews with different people. A possible murder happened before the start of the book and we are reading interviews of the victim and possible murderers friends and acquaintances. It was a very creepy haunted house tale and it was told in an interesting way. I read it very quickly and enjoyed every minute of this read. I wish the whole book had been this good.

[Stephen Bacon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been reading the anthologies of Jonathan Oliver for several years. He has a great eye for talent and his books usually have a diverse and fascinating array of contributors. Five Stories High breaks from the standard format to include five novellas from some of the best speculative authors of today, all loosely set within the framing story of being linked to the same building.

As a ‘theme’ it’s quite a relaxed one. It’s obvious that the stories contained within the book are from the genre of ‘weird’ fiction, but the theme allows enough variation as to prevent the novellas feeling restricted by this. There’s a nice range of writing on offer – Maggots by Nina Allan, Priest’s Hole by KJ Parker, Gnaw by Tade Thompson, The Best Story I Can Manage in the Circumstances by Robert Shearman, and Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz.

The building, Irongrove Lodge, is mentioned in the interspersed notes, which offers some insight and background into the history of the dwelling. These snippets, too, help to create a rather unnerving foundation upon which the stories sit. The novella has always felt the perfect length for a horror tale, and the stories in this anthology maximise their potential. Whilst it’s fair to say that not every contribution worked for me, there’s still plenty here to enjoy. Nothing too outright scary, these are tales that probe around in the recesses of the subconscious, and I found myself thinking about them long after I had put the book down. Recommended.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was great, I enjoyed this so much! Looking at some of the other reviews, it's fair to say this is a haunted house collection that won't appeal to everyone, but it really hit the spot for me.
If you want your standard haunted house story (you know the one. In my BookBub newsletter it's always some variation of "Looking for a fresh start, Zach moves to idyllic Creepybones Canyon. Soon he is surprised to learn that Bloodcurdle Mansion is hiding a hideous secret..."), then this might not be the collection for you.
It does have a haunted house, and it has some excellent chills, but...it's also got variety. Sarah Lotz and Tade Thompson will serve up the horror with all the ghosts, madness and blood you require. They are also two of my three favourite stories.
However, the standout has to be Robert Shearman's "The Best Story I Can Manage Under The Circumstances".
I'll admit I mostly bought the collection for Shearman's story. I wasn't disappointed. Despite being only about 60 pages, it is *epic*, moving and terrifying all at once.
It has to be said, however, it's not primarily a haunted house story (though I loved the creepy way he set up the connection to Irongrove Lodge. Douze points!).
In other words, the perfect collection for anyone who likes haunted houses, but also isn't scared to read something a little different, too!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

One house, five stories, five hauntings, five terrifying novellas. I do love a good theme anthology, and this one has a dynamite setup: five novellas by five different authors, each one set on a different story of the mysterious Irongrove Lodge. This is, of course, a haunted house on a quiet London street, a place that straddles the line between our calm, quiet reality and the unspeakable madness of a darker, nefarious world.

Nina Allan’s story “Maggots” starts the collection off right; it follows a young man home from college, spending time with his close-knit family. He begins to suspect something is wrong with his aunt; she disappeared briefly while on holiday in another town, and she hasn’t seemed or acted right ever since. He’s the only one who thinks anything is amiss, and decides he’s the only person capable of finding the reason his aunt has changed. What he finds is Irongrove Lodge, and the secrets held by its first-floor resident that might break his mind. Allan methodically builds tension and grim unease, draws you into the mind of this young man, connects you to his family, and ends up hitting you with a belt of cosmic horror and plot twist in ways that weren’t ever expected. I found this novella downright chilling, and it was one of my favorite stories in this volume.

Next up is K.J. Parker’s “Priest’s Hole,” about the resident on the second floor of Irongrove Lodge. He’s a shapeshifter who can become someone else in body and blood, just for a little while. He survives doing odd-jobs using this skill—giving someone an alibi, appearing as a deceased relative or idol. He hates these jobs, and is haunted by them almost as much as his checkered past: the disappearance of his wife and her paintings, or the failure of his mathematician father whose Nobel-winning theorem was refuted a few years later. Then on one job, he’s stabbed and almost killed—but by who, and why? Parker’s writing is quite good, and I kept going on the strength of that writing alone, but I have to say that I found the story ponderous as it just did not grab me; it seemed trapped in the protagonist’s internalized struggles, cloaked in a surreal haze, jumping back and forth between past and present… it felt more like a fever dream.

Tade Thompson’s entry, “Gnaw,” follows a young couple and their two children moving into the third story of Irongrove Lodge. Harry Newton has sunk all of his savings into this beautiful Georgian home, hoping to give his wife Tara a taste of the wealthy life she grew up with. But Tara feels an eerie presence in this place. Bizarre messages, phantom noises, and odd occurrences start to add up. It’s the children who first see the things—the spirits that lurk within the house’s darkness. And they have a gnawing, ravenous hunger. “Gnaw” started out as a haunted house/ghost tale reminiscent of American Horror Story, with great characterization and some intense atmosphere. It only got better when the story’s layers and twists were revealed. This excellent tale picks up the pace compared to the two previous stories, and I was hooked until its gripping finale.

Robert Shearman has written “The Best Story I Can Manage Under The Circumstances,” and it’s a hard story to review—definitely the weirdest and boldest of the novellas, somewhere on the borderline between metafictional horror and bizarro fiction. It starts off with an almost fairytale opening about a loving couple who give birth to a head; on its first birthday, the head meets a woman who gives birth to a torso, and sometime later, another woman gives birth to its arms and legs. We leave this composite thing to follow a young boy who always seems to find doorways on his bedroom walls, possibly an escape from his parents’ failing marriage. all of which lead him to the monstrous composite creature from earlier. The weirdness level progresses from there. Let’s just say this wasn’t my cuppa tea.

The last story, “Skin Deep” by Sarah Lotz, may very well be a case of saving the best for last. Accused murderer Malika has been nicknamed “The Butcher” from the horrific wounds inflicted on her boyfriend Robin. What sells the story is the way it’s told—it’s written like a series of interviews, cycling between the listing agent, the interior designer, the clean-up guy, various best friends, a member of the jury, all of whom frame the story and foreshadow its details before we get the killer’s view of what happened: she claims it’s ghosts—that the oppressive Irongrove Lodge did it, by driving Robin insane. Heck, before you even know what’s going on, people are referring to her as The Butcher and letting their opinions flow. That leads to a very memorable and effective story, aided by solid writing, excellent atmosphere, and an intriguing mystery.

Of the stories, three were standouts—Lotz, Allan, and Thompson were my favorites, in roughly that order. I enjoyed Parker’s story but wasn’t grabbed but it—I think it suffers from having same slow, methodical pacing as Allan’s story which preceded it. Shearman’s was a bit too weird for me, and I have the feeling that will be the case for a lot of other readers, though others will read it and discover that they love bizarro horror. (Obvious disclaimer that not everyone likes every story in an anthology due to personal preference goes here.) I think Five Stories High is worth reading on the strengths of “Maggots,” “Gnaw,” and “Skin Deep” alone, as those are three fantastic stories by authors I’m keen to read again.

(Originally posted on my blog.)

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was surprisingly good for the most part (I've become sadly accustomed to horrid pastiche from kindle horror books). I don't know why so many reviewers didn't like the first story. I thought it was great, a perfect homage to Machen. Actually most of the book was a bit Machen-esque which suited me down to the ground. The last story was actually quite creepy and I thought about it uncomfortably after the lights were out last night (RESULT)

[Jennie Shook · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting concept for a book of short stories. Five different authors wrote stories which involved the same haunted house. The story by Tade Thompson is incredible. It is creepy and slightly disturbing. I also enjoyed the story by Sarah Lots. Unfortunately two of the five stories were missing a good thirty pages from the middle of each, so I can't fully review them.

[Mark Rzeszutek · Rating 2 out of 5]

My copy of this turned out to be one of those with chunks of pages missing. Only the first and last stories were complete. Nina Allan's "Maggots" was good with strong characterization. Sarah Lotz's "Skin Deep" was excellent and fit the expressed concept of the book really well. Unfortunately the middle story which has been well-reviewed here is one of the ones missing pages in my copy.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with all short story collections, there are some that are really good and some that are so-so. I can't say these were bad in any way but I didn't find them stand out or all that memorable. The best of the five was probably the last one Skin Deep by Sarah Lotz. That particular story probably had the most creep factor of all of them.

[Gloria Webber · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some OK stories in here and the premise is interesting, but it kind of went nowhere. Also "The best story I could come up with under the circumstances" was ENTIRELY too long and incredibly boring. It put me off really enjoying the rest of the book.