mike_brough's review
4.0
A slow start, a fantastic build-up in atmosphere and then a hurried let-down of an ending.
Cottam writes his male and female protagonists expertly, he uses a few well-chosen, well-paced phrases and he builds a decent sense of menace.
He missed a few opportunities. The one that springs to mind is. Why that was shown as a consequence rather than as a set-piece, I've no idea. It would have been one of the highlights of the book.
Overall, the book was good enough to push me to seek out another Cottam book.
Cottam writes his male and female protagonists expertly, he uses a few well-chosen, well-paced phrases and he builds a decent sense of menace.
He missed a few opportunities. The one that springs to mind is
Spoiler
the finding of the 5 dead girls arranged in a pentagram.Overall, the book was good enough to push me to seek out another Cottam book.
doloresofcourse's review
4.0
This is actually a very good haunted ship all-around ghost story with good and evil. I struggled with the writing style because it was all tell and don’t show. There were many very important scenes that weren’t played out but summed up in a paragraph. I need to see the action. By the end, I felt Simone St. James vibes, so if you are into her work, give this one a shot.
litwrite's review
4.0
Cottam rises to the occasion again. There are strong similarities between this novel and the first of his that I read - [b:The House Of Lost Souls|3153080|The House Of Lost Souls|F.G. Cottam|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327546836s/3153080.jpg|3184661]. I felt that this one worked a lot better plotwise and the flow and pacing was much stronger than in his debut work, though I do think I like the storyline of the first one better.
I love the way Cottam handles the intermingling of historical figures with his modern day hauntings - something that I appreciated even more after reading the heavy-handed [b:Shadow of Night|11559200|Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)|Deborah Harkness|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320604137s/11559200.jpg|16499524]. The book was nicely atmospheric and satisfied in that old school horror vein. I much preferred this to Adam Nevill's work (I noticed a street in here named 'Nevill' - I didn't know if this was some sort of shout out or homage, or if this is an actual street in the UK?) because I think it felt more grounded somehow. I think Cottam does a better job with mood and suspense than Nevill did, especially in Banquet for the Damned.
Would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good ghost story.
I love the way Cottam handles the intermingling of historical figures with his modern day hauntings - something that I appreciated even more after reading the heavy-handed [b:Shadow of Night|11559200|Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)|Deborah Harkness|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320604137s/11559200.jpg|16499524]. The book was nicely atmospheric and satisfied in that old school horror vein. I much preferred this to Adam Nevill's work (I noticed a street in here named 'Nevill' - I didn't know if this was some sort of shout out or homage, or if this is an actual street in the UK?) because I think it felt more grounded somehow. I think Cottam does a better job with mood and suspense than Nevill did, especially in Banquet for the Damned.
Would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good ghost story.
mscarle's review
2.0
I'm in the hard minority here I know but in spite of the fact that this story had a seed of something very cool in it, it just never got there for me. Found myself just not caring about any of the characters or what happened to them, found myself wishing the antagonist was more fleshed out. Just didn't feel it.
opinionhaver's review against another edition
4.0
3.5, rounding up - this was fantastically pompous and more than a little hammy (sorry i am simply Obsessed with the notion of the protagonist seeing a random beautiful woman getting mugged by a gang of hoodie-wearing thugs on the london tube, coming to her rescue, getting stabbed in the arm to prevent her from being disfigured, singlehandedly beating the entire gang into submission immediately post-stabbing, and then being a) thanked by the police for effectively doing their job for them and b) fallen in love with by the beautiful woman - even stephenie meyer would describe this as A Bit Much) but as much as it verges on silliness sometimes i still enjoyed this a lot and tbqh nothing quite earns the right to be pompous and silly like a horror novel about a demonically haunted boat, so.
honestly the only thing that actually bothered me is the way the author writes women - i liked suzanne’s pov but the way her and jane are repeatedly described as Fiercely Beautiful got a little tiresome after a while & also there’s a line at one point doubting that the murders of a couple of young women were sexually motivated because the women in question weren’t attractive which irritated me…… A Lot, but these issues were minor enough that they didn’t tarnish the rest of the book for me. so if you can ignore that and the occasionally somewhat overblown dialogue then you’ll probably have a good time with the actual story, which is deftly written and imo quite compelling
honestly the only thing that actually bothered me is the way the author writes women - i liked suzanne’s pov but the way her and jane are repeatedly described as Fiercely Beautiful got a little tiresome after a while & also there’s a line at one point doubting that the murders of a couple of young women were sexually motivated because the women in question weren’t attractive which irritated me…… A Lot, but these issues were minor enough that they didn’t tarnish the rest of the book for me. so if you can ignore that and the occasionally somewhat overblown dialogue then you’ll probably have a good time with the actual story, which is deftly written and imo quite compelling
tattooedhorrorreader's review
4.0
Really enjoyed this read, I found it a bit slow to start, but once it got going, I struggled to put it down.
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