Five Stories High

‘They didn’t see the house until they were practically on top of it. A single building emerging fromthe dark. It didn’t look welcoming. But the front door was open. The door was wide open.’Irongrove Lodge – a building with history; the very bricks and grounds imbued with the stories of those who have walked these corridors, lived in these rooms. These are the tales of an extraordinary house, a place that straddles our world and whatever lies beyond; a place that some are desperate to discover, and others to flee. At one time an asylum, at another a care home, sometimes simply a home.The residents of Irongrove Lodge will learn that this house will change them, that the stories told here never go away. Of all who enter, only some will leave.Multi-award-winning editor Jonathan Oliver has brought together five extraordinary writers to open the doors, revealing ghosts both past and present in a collection as intriguing as it is terrifying. Along with a linking narrative, this collection features five novellas by Nina Allan, Tade Thompson, K. J. Parker, Robert Shearman and Sarah Lotz.

Jonathan Oliver is the multi-award winning editor of the anthologies The End of the Line, Magic, House of Fear, End of the Road and Dangerous Games. He is the editor in chief at Rebellion publishing.Robert Shearman has written five short story collections, and between them they have won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Edge Hill Readers Prize, and three British Fantasy Awards. A dramatist and regular writer for BBC Radio, he is probably best known for his work on Doctor Who.After a spectacularly unsuccessful career as a lawyer, K. J. Parker started writing for a living in 1995. He won the World Fantasy Award for best novella two years running, and also writes under the name Tom Holt.Sarah Lotz is a novelist and screenwriter with a fondness for the macabre and fake names. Her collaborative and solo novels have been translated into over twenty-five languages.Tade Thompson lives and works in the south of England. He is the author of the novels Making Wolf (which won the Golden Tentacle Award at the 2016 Kitschies) and Rosewater, and his short fiction is widely published. His background is in medicine, psychiatry and social anthropology.Nina Allan’s stories have appeared in Best Horror of the Year, The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy and The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women. Her novella Spin, story cycle The Silver Wind and debut novel The Race won or were nominated for a host of awards. Nina lives and works in North Devon.