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. ( )

2.5 ( )

“Five Stories High” is an anthology compiling five standalone novellas, linked by the fact that all of them are set in Irongrove Lodge, a quite heavily haunted house. When I first read about this book, I thought it looked really promising, as it was devoted exclusively to novellas (one of my favorite formats), the tittle was really clever, and it included stories by K. J. Parker and Robert Shearman, two writers I love.

The five stories are quite different, but they all fall more into the category of dark fiction/weird than pure horror. “Priest’s Hole”, just another in K.J. Parker’s recent series of brilliant novellas, was my favorite piece in the book. I also liked quite a lot “Maggots”, by Nina Allan, although I felt a bit let down by the ending; and “Skin Deep”, with a multiple point-of-view structure that works perfectly well. Although I felt not so enthusiastic about “Gnaw”, by Tade Thompson, this story was also worth reading. Unfortunately, the weird, comic and even surrealistic Shearman’s story, the strangest by far in the anthology, didn’t work for me at all.

“Five Stories High” was a varied and entertaining reading, and I’m pretty sure any dark fantasy lover will find something to his taste in it. ( )

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! ( )