AMAZON SALES LINK: BANQUET FOR THE DAMNED
Few believed Professor Coldwell could commune with spirits. But in Scotland’s oldest university town something has passed from darkness into light. Now, the young are being haunted by night terrors and those who are visited disappear. This is certainly not a place for outsiders, especially at night. So what chance do a rootless musician and burned-out explorer have of surviving their entanglement with an ageless supernatural evil and the ruthless cult that worships it? A chilling occult thriller from award-winning author Adam Nevill, Banquet for the Damned is both a homage to the great age of British ghost stories and a pacey modern tale of diabolism and witchcraft.
Hey diddily, everyone! I hope you’re all well, and enjoying wonderful, scary books. Speaking of, I’m just stopping in with a quickie little review of one I enjoyed immensely recently – Banquet for the Damned. This story was first published in 2004 and I can’t believe that almost 20 years later have I finally discovered it! It’s everything I want in a novel.
Firstly, it gets pretty scary. I’m learning that Nevill is quite masterful at building suspense, as are many authors of this genre. However, where I think he excels and positions himself on some sort of horror master throne is in his ability to not just inspire tension but actual fear. It’s very rare that I really feel frightened reading a book, but there’s just something about the way he describes things that really gets under my skin and spooks me.
The characters in this are wonderful – not perfect people by any means but for me, certainly perfect characters. They’re so well-realised and fully formed that it was easy to picture them, and empathise with them, even minor characters that barely appear.
Our main character is Dante, the superfan of a writer who he gets the opportunity to work with. Supposedly. Something’s up with this writer, man. Something’s amiss. He keeps extremely weird company. I thought the narrative was going in a fairly straightforward direction, which I was fine with because it was entertaining and gripping, and then it surprised me in a great way and became something unexpected.
I find that few writers are equally talented when it comes to plot and characters – they’re either better at one or the other. However, I have to say that I think that Nevill just nails all the elements across the board. And to think, this is a book that he wrote much earlier in his career. If this is how great he was when he started, I can’t wait to read what he’s writing another 20 years from now (no, he is not allowed to retire!!!!)
I’d recommend this book to fans of supernatural/occult horror, ghosts, demons, and even witchcraft. This is a dark arts story, and one of the best (if not THE best) that I’ve read. Happy haunted nights!
If you’d like to get your own copy, or check out the author, the links you need are below:
Happy Goat Horror 
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