Sunday, October 18, 2015

Slade House, by David Mitchell. Random House, 2015




"Slade House” is a haunted house story- except the house is not really haunted. The story spans 36 years, from October 1979 to October 2015. On each of the nine year anniversaries, a new but connected story ensues as a new person walks into the trap. Each new person learns more about what is going on, until at the last we are given a whole explanation. The story is tied to the author’s recent “The Bone Clocks”, but I had no trouble figuring out how this particular fantasy wor
The entrance to Slade House is a small black iron door in an alley that only is visible every 9 years. Like a TARDIS, the Victorian house and grounds are bigger on the inside than the outside- there is no way it could fit within the current street lay-out. Like fairy land or the Greek underworld, if the victim eats or drinks anything they are doomed to stay there. It’s a very tense and frightening story; the victim- and the reader- has no way of knowing what is real and what isn’t. It’s short; a novella rather than a full sized book, so things happen quickly. And the ending leaves the reader hanging and wanting more. 


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I received a copy of this book free from Net Galley in return for an unbiased review. 

Neither of these things influenced my review.  

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