I mention all this because Changeling was always going to be a very tough act to follow, and it definitely affected the way I read and reacted to Beast. This fourth book is enjoyable but, in contrast to its predecessor, does not present a complete narrative or a revelatory conclusion. Instead, it's a very different take on the perspective 'six stories' can provide. The setting and the sense of place that you get whilst reading Beast is tremendous and you are transported to the rundown coastal town of Ergarth. Ergarth is a claustrophobic small town where Tankerville Tower ‘The Vampire Tower’ a decaying monolith on the outskirts casts a forbidding shadow over the whole town. It is an area that has been forgotten by the government with no money and no jobs available. It is a place where life has been drained, leeched away, bleak and drab where the colour is muted and has turned to grey. It is a community where everyone knows each other and where gossip and rumours are rife. It is a town with history, the Ergarth Vampire a story that has been passed down through the centuries and from one generation to the next. There's a strong focus on how government cuts have affected the downtrodden community of Ergarth, and may even have had a direct hand in the murder. As always, some intriguing little threads are worked into the plot, like Jason's animal activism, and Amirah's rant about middle-class vs. working-class use of the term 'chav' (with which I wholeheartedly agree, and I'm so happy to see this perspective make it into a book, however briefly!). However, I also found some elements a bit far-fetched – that widely known and gossiped-about connections between the victim and accused wouldn't have come out in court, for example. I struggled to believe in some of the events in the climactic chapter, and was confused and troubled by the final transcript. I’m not entirely sure what I expected this story to be. But it’s something altogether more chilling and better than I could have predicted. Over the last few years, Matt Wesolowski's Six Stories books have become a winter tradition for me, and last year's Changeling was the highlight of the series so far. Not only was it an astoundingly clever and cunning piece of storytelling, it also brought podcast host Scott King to the fore, integrating the series' narrator into the story ingeniously. I reread it over Christmas, and I still find it astonishing.

The story coursed the imaginary boundary between real and supernatural well, I was left in a swirling maze from where I knew not whom to believe in. A truly compelling read, giving the other side of social media and its fake world, the writing captivated me and brought out a weird craving that I need more of this author's books. In case you’re not familiar with Six Stories: last year I wrote a review of Deity for Sublime Horror that also acts as an overview of/intro to the whole series.) I'm still not 100 percent sure how everything tied together, or what really happened in the end, but I enjoyed the ride Wesolowski took me on. Definitely one of those books that grabs you and doesn't really let you go. There's occasionally some clumsy phrasing, but the plot's so gripping, the different perspectives so tantalising, that it barely matters. Like Serial and Making a Murderer, Six Stories is structured to manipulate your emotions, and once the story takes hold, you'll be dying to know how it ends (no pun intended). Some details ring true: the 'weird loner' vilified by the press; the teenagers' reluctance to admit to resentment, lust and bullying within their group; adults' hysteria about silly things like their tastes in music. Others are a little harder to swallow (all I will say here is: the mask thing).Plus IT'S 99 CENTS! I got it for free, but I would have happily spent a dollar on it. Matter of fact, I'll probably go for the sequel too. This is a book that strives to bring something new to the suspense genre, riding on the coattails of the popular podcast Serial, urging readers to follow along and draw their own conclusions about the mysterious death at hand. If you haven’t experienced Serial ( seriously, what are you waiting for?!), the format of this book and the many times the podcast itself is mentioned, just might drive you to give it a listen. Believe me, you won’t regret it; both seasons have proven to be wholly addicting and beyond intriguing true crime. Was it an accident? Or something more sinister? It seems like there's always something to hide, especially in the shadowed and unstable lands of Scarclaw Fell. First of all, it was delightful to read about the North East of England, where I grew up! It’s always a weirdly awesome feeling, reading about somewhere you know – or is that just me? Not only that but having lived through the ‘Beast from the East’, there was a great sense of reality to this book. It made me feel even more invested.

Six wives” junkies, especially Anne Boleyn fans, tend to discount Jane Seymour and declare her the most boring and the least feminist of all the wives. So Six seems to have set itself the laudable goal of pulling an Eliza Hamilton on Jane Seymour, of making the case that Jane Seymour’s status as the most traditionally feminine of Henry’s six wives does not make her deserving of our contempt.

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Maybe it’s because I haven’t read the other books but I found the narrator a bit of a drip. I didn’t particularly like him and as the story began to unfold, a story I found very predictable, it amazed and annoyed me that he seemed completely oblivious to what was clearly in front of him. Each new chapter is as though it’s a new podcast episode and so a new person being interviewed. The first couple were interesting to follow but because there are six of them (Six Stories... get it?), it began to get pretty repetitive as it was covering old ground each time. The story opens with a man named Howard awakening to unfamiliar surroundings. To him, the world is dark, he has no vision and no control over his motions but he can feel, hear and smell the things around him. Using his senses, he comes to the realization that he is on a gurney and something unfortunate must have happened to him but all he can recall is being at the golf course.

And as the old adage goes, there’s always two sides to every story. In this case there are six sides, each with its own flavour and perspective, highlighting the many different narratives that coexist side by side. At the end of the day, the narrative that is told by the strongest person/s is the one that generally becomes the ‘truth’. King/Wesolowski challenge the accepted narrative by giving voice to the the ones who are often the voiceless in an effort to illuminate the many versions of the ‘truth’. The focus of the book is the murder of Lizzie B. who is a famous YouTube blogger. She has decided to participate in the Dead in Six Days Challenge in which she has to perform various tasks and if she doesn't she will meet her death by vampire on the sixth day. All the tasks are recorded and posted online for all her adoring fans to see.Howard tries to communicate with the doctors multiple times but to no avail. Every time it seems that Howard has a chance, it’s ripped away. It’s a rollercoaster of a story, but not in a scary sense, it’s more frustrating than anything. The way King chose to end the story is so original, it was never expected. I thoroughly enjoyed this short, dark tale about “Howard the Conqueror”. Interspersed with the six podcast episodes you also get to see the research that Scott has done on the case and snippets of Elizabeth and her YouTube channel too. I like how the author accurately captured the zeitgeist of social media and influencer culture though. When each take the spotlight and go solo, the audience just about loses their minds’: Chloé Zuel as Catherine of Aragon. Photograph: James D Morgan Matt Wesolowski crafts his story with descriptors imbued with a deep physical sense. You seem to hear the crunch underfoot and experience the rawness of the swampy woodland that holds a death knell for the abandoned mine shafts hidden in the choke of winding growth.