No One Gets Out Alive

Stephanie Booth is broke and drifting between temp jobs in Birmingham. She has fallen out with her stepmother and has no one to turn to. When she sees a cheap room advertised at 82 Edgehill Road, in Perry Barr, she takes it, though the house is neglected and the landlord lets only to girls.

The first night brings sounds she cannot place. Voices seep up from under the floorboards and out of the chimney breast, and someone weeps in rooms where nobody lives. Her landlord, Knacker McGuire, is difficult company at the best of times. Then his cousin Fergal arrives.

With Fergal in the house, the danger no longer comes from ghosts alone. The book sets a haunted house beside plain human cruelty, and the violence is graphic. This horror novel stands alone. It first appeared in 2014, reached the United States in 2015, and took the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel that same year. Netflix released a loose film adaptation in 2021.

Stephanie has almost no money and nowhere else to go, so leaving is not simple. Whether she can get out of Edgehill Road at all is the question the book keeps pressing.