Family Business

By: Jonathan Sims

Narrated by: Jonathan Sims, Rachel Petladwala

A bone-chilling horror from the acclaimed writer of THIRTEEN STOREYS and hit horror podcast THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

JUST ANOTHER DEAD-END JOB.

DEATH. IT'S A DIRTY BUSINESS.

When Diya Burman's best friend Angie dies, it feels like her own life is falling apart. Wanting a fresh start, she joins Slough & Sons - a family firm that cleans up after the recently deceased.

Old love letters. Porcelain dolls. Broken trinkets. Clearing away the remnants of other people's lives, Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination. All is not as it seems with the Slough family. Why won't they speak about their own recent loss? And who is the strange man that keeps turning up at their jobs?

If Diya's not careful, she might just end up getting buried under the family tree. . .

©2022 Jonathan Sims (P)2022 Gollancz

Critic reviews

"Combines a creeping sense of unease with all-out gore... Nerve-jangling." (Guardian)

"A wonderfully creepy climax, hitting that perfect spot of uncanny horror." (Grimdark Magazine)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Admittedly a slow burn at first but the pay off was a wonderfully horror-filled delight!

This is the second audiobook I have ever heard with multiple voices. The first being Jonathan Sims' "13 Storeys" (another excellent title). Jonny, if you see this review, please keep doing this. It's new and fresh and I love it. If I had to add anything, I would have added sound effects like you did in "13 Storeys" but regardless, I will listen to this again and again. Guaranteed!

Great

I love horror & Jonathan Sims so this was great. Thirteen Storeys is still my favourite from him but this was great too. Great narration but a lot slower to start than Thirteen Storeys. It was worth it though.

Delicious, if you like quiet gloom.

First, I cannot emphasis how refreshing it is to find LGBT protagonists in stories where the focus is not on a manufactured sense of novelty and queerness (whether presented in the positive or the negative.) This is one of the very few stories out there that allows a cast of marginalised people be the heroes of a struggle any ordinary people in an extraordinary world could face. This, of course, in the book goes much deeper than just the cast's LGBT identities, and spans from the primary focus group to those around them, who are all in their own ways people society often... forgets.

Delightful October experience, with lovingly crafted characters you can't dislike and who bring their own warmth and colour into what could otherwise be a very bleak world. I don't know who I wouldn't recommend this book to.

Bonus points for the calming presence of a domestic feline!

Another Knockout

Jonathan Sims is possibly the freshest breath of air on the horror scene I've found in some time. A skilled hand at atmospheric tension and an increasingly well-honed political and social commentary meeting lively and diverse characters.

What is the forsaken was a thing?

It’s beautiful. The lovely framing of grief, not in some contrived way, is framed in a respect while retaining the entertaining quality of horror. The ending was sadifying in a way I’ve grown to enjoy from Jonny Sims.