Castle Heights by P.J. Blakey-Novis

​I like a good themed anthology. And as a lifelong apartment dweller, I have a particular fondness for apartment horror. Because house horror has been done to death and came back to haunt itself as a ghost. Being alone and scared is easy, being amid others and terrified…that’s another story.
So, that’s the idea here – one of those giant tower blocks one normally associates with England, but can find in any urban scenario. Ugly practical things that never quite feel like home, but ordinary, right?
Well, in Castle Heights, things are about to go wrong, very very wrong. One night, one blackout, 18 nightmares – one for each floor.
A terrific concept, albeit somewhat unevenly executed. It doesn’t start off very strongly (some distinct amateurish vibes at first); in fact, it doesn’t pick up until the fifth story. And since I can never remember the names, I tried to remember the story numbers, so it goes like this…the best ones are 5-6 and 9-14. I think. Didn’t quite like the final story either, so both bookends leave something to be desired, but the middle is quite good, which combined with a strong main concept made for a pretty good read.
Especially, considering that I wasn’t familiar with any of the author’s names.
So yeah, well done, atmospheric, freaky, eerie. All the things genre fans tend to enjoy. I was able to grab this as a freebie too, so…nice find.