Apartment 16

Adam Nevill

May 2010 · Pan Macmillan

About this ebook

Some doors are better left closed . . .

In Barrington House, an upmarket block in London, there is an empty apartment. No one goes in, no one comes out. And it has been that way for fifty years. Until the night watchman hears a disturbance after midnight and investigates. What he experiences is enough to change his life forever.

A young American woman, Apryl, arrives at Barrington House. She's been left an apartment by her mysterious Great Aunt Lillian who died in strange circumstances. Rumours claim Lillian was mad. But her diary suggests she was implicated in a horrific and inexplicable event decades ago.

Determined to learn something of this eccentric woman, Apryl begins to unravel the hidden story of Barrington House. She discovers that a transforming, evil force still inhabits the building. And the doorway to Apartment 16 is a gateway to something altogether more terrifying . . .

Apartment 16 is another gripping novel full of suspense and horror from Adam Nevill, twice winner of the August Derleth award.

Ratings and reviews

Apartment 16 was promising in the beginning. I liked the creepy atmosphere described in the apartment Apryl inherited from a great aunt she never knew. So much could have been done with that scenario. Instead, the story veered off into something indecipherable about an evil artist, a weird kid wearing a hoodie and elderly people trapped in filthy luxury apartments. I just gave up and skimmed the last 40 percent of the book. I tried.

The story was okay and decently paced, very descriptive as well. The author is incredibly descriptive of what the characters are experiencing. Though it seemed more and more like, as the book neared the end, that the buildup was going nowhere and the ending doesn't seem to have resolved much of anything. Like it had purposely been left open for a second book rather than being a definitive story on its own. Ambiguity is great in measured doses, but it is not as satisfying to me as exposition; but this is just my opinion and I know everyone has different tsstes. I don't regret my purchase or time investment in reading this book, but the ending leaves a lot to be desired.

I enjoyed Adam Nevill's other prominent novel- The Ritual, but this one did not captivate me. It seems to be aiming for demented/shocking dreamscape but it falls flat and feels very intangible. As a result of the dreamscapes being intangible the edgy bits are especially annoying to me because they are not gripping- they're just a little gross. I didn't care for the characters at all, they seemed two dimensional and lacking- especially the characters who were supposed to be dark came off like caricatures. I'm sorry to admit that I did not get all the way through the story because of my annoyance with the whole thing.

About the author

Adam Nevill was born in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and grew up in England and New Zealand. He is the author of the supernatural horror novels including Banquet for the Damned, Apartment 16, House of Small Shadows, No One Gets Out Alive and Lost Girl as well as The Ritual and Last Days which both won The August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel, and the RUSA for Best in Category: Horror. Adam lives in Birmingham, England.