[Book Review] Castle Heights: 18 Storeys, 18 Stories
Castle Heights, released on June 3 by Red Cape Publishing, was born of an idea between friends: Tony Sands and filmmaker MJ Dixon, with a singular goal to entertain and scare during one of the darkest periods in our global history. To that end, Castle Heights is undoubtedly successful, sure to entertain and inspire writers and readers of indie horror.
The premise, on the surface, is simple: One tower block with 18 floors, and 18 writers to capture the events of a terrible night during which the strange and vicious come out to play with the ill-fated residents. What makes this anthology special is the unique way each story wraps around the unifying events of that night (one of which is a television showing of Dixon’s own real-life film, 2019’s Mask of Thorn).
We enter Castle Heights with beleaguered Detective Chetwyn investigating the case of a mummified corpse found on the first floor. Through a series of journal entries by the deceased, he is introduced — and the reader with him — to the tower block’s horrifying world.
In the stories that follow, we encounter demons, monsters, a sadistic child, unexplained phenomena, hungry walls, and parables of greed and guilt.
A few of the tales have remained with me days after having read them.
In Bob Pipe’s Bloody Nightmare In Room 19, we encounter a disabled body-snatching veteran on a mission that transcends human understanding of time. In Teige Reid’s A Guilty Feeding on the 4th Floor, a Soldier of Fortune is hired to take out a man who just won’t die. And in Floor 15: Fear Thy Neighbour, Matthew Davies takes on xenophobia and racism as paralleled by fear of contagion, an appropriate story that reflects the very real issues of our time.
Not every story within the anthology is as strong as those mentioned above, and some are just as strong, if not stronger. For every occasional bout of weaker writing, for every story that reads as if it couldn’t choose a clear path, there are five truly haunting stories that follow. The beauty of Castle Heights is how cohesive it is, marrying 18 different writers, styles, and visions in one book that ultimately works and achieves its goal.
Castle Heights is available in e-book and paperback formats on Amazon, and can be read for free by Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
I invite you to enter the world of Castle Heights — Just watch out for that damned parrot.
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