House of Skin

by Jonathan Janz

"Fans of ghost stories like The Haunting of Hill House and Hell House will love this book." - Horror Maiden
Myles Carver is dead. But his estate, Watermere, lives on, waiting for a new Carver to move in. Myles’s wife, Annabel, is dead too, but she is also waiting, lying in her grave in the woods. For nearly half a century she was responsible for a nightmarish reign of terror, and she’s not prepared to stop now. She is hungry to live again…and her unsuspecting nephew, Paul, will be the key.



Julia Merrow has a secret almost as dark as Watermere’s. But when she and Paul fall in love they think their problems might be over. How can they know what Fate—and Annabel—have in store for them? Who could imagine that what was once a moldering corpse in a forest grave is growing stronger every day, eager to take her rightful place amongst the horrors of Watermere?
 
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

• ISBN10: 1787582132
• ISBN13: 9781787582132
• Publish Date: 30 May 2019 (first published 1 June 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Flame Tree Press
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[zooloo1983]

Another month and another love letter to Mr Janz! Ok, I may reel it in this time! Promise! However, every book I read, just gets better and better.

Two storylines are running through the book, Paul and Julia’s. Julia is the first we meet and Ted Brand, Paul’s lawyer. Julia, sweet and innocent, oh so innocent at first, but is she what she seems? Paul, running away from an ex-girlfriend, everything he knows all because he has been left a ton of cash and the house Watermere. However, this is a Janz novel, things do not run smoothly….ever!

Learning the history of this house and Paul’s uncle Myles Carver was absolutely horrifying! The things that happened. I mean my stomach was turning at the beginning when Paul hit something with his car and that is before we even get into it all. The level of detail that Mr Janz goes into when describing the ghastly sights in front of us is enough to make your stomach drop. The thing is I love the gruesome, I love the scares and this is another book I loved.

I cannot tell you any more about House of Skin‘s plot as I do not want to ruin it for you. It will set your teeth on edge, it will give you goosebumps, it will make you cringe with the gore and gruesome, but most of all you will appreciate how a book can make you feel all of these things and still “enjoy” the storyline and want to know how it will end! It is the imagination of Janz I love, no two books I have read have been the same, how he is still coming up with fresh ideas, things I would never have thought about beats me. It just makes me want to keep reading his work and never stop!

I could not put this book down, and before I knew it I had read 100 pages, this is how much I adore the writing of Janz. He sucks you in, the way in which he writes it really does remind me of the 80’s/90’s horror writers and I know it has been mentioned before with his influences but I can always sense Richard Laymon in his books. I still need to read books by Jack Ketchum and Brian Keene as they are influences too.