The Apartment by K.L. Slater
|Genre: Psychological thriller, Suspense
Read: 25th August 2020
Goodreads
Amazon
Published: 28th April 2020
★★★★ 3.5 stars (rounded up)
DESCRIPTION:
It’s an opportunity she can’t refuse. The woman before her tried…
Freya Miller needs a miracle. In the fallout of her husband’s betrayal, she’s about to lose her family home, and with it the security she craves for her five-year-old daughter, Skye. Adrift and alone, she’s on the verge of despair until a chance meeting with the charismatic Dr Marsden changes everything. He’s seeking a new tenant for a shockingly affordable flat in a fashionable area of London.
Adder House sounds too good to be true… But Freya really can’t afford to be cynical, and Dr Marsden is adamant she and Skye will be a perfect fit with the other residents.
But Adder House has secrets. Even behind a locked front door, Freya feels as if she’s being watched: objects moving, unfamiliar smells, the blinking light of a concealed camera… and it’s not long before she begins to suspect that her dream home is hiding a nightmarish reality. Was it really chance that led her here—or something unthinkably dark?
As the truth about Adder House starts to unravel, can Freya and Skye get out—or will they be locked in forever?
MY REVIEW:
As an avid fan of Kim Slater, I was naturally excited to read THE APARTMENT and if I were expecting another domestic thriller then I'd be disappointed because this book is a step away from Kim's usual style. It is creepy, atmospheric and tense throughout centred on an illustrious apartment in the affluent and highly expensive area of Kensington in London.
If something seems too good to true then it probably is.
Freya Miller grew up in the foster care system, not knowing or caring who her parents were. To say she has trust issues would be an understatement. Particularly after her husband of a decade leaves her for her best friend. So when he decides to go for full custody of their 5 year old daughter Skye, citing that she needs a more stable environment, Freya is livid but is spared the ordeal when he tragically dies before he can. Now she has to sell the only house Skye knows and find somewhere else to live fast.
So when she is approached by an older man in a coffee shop who then offers her an apartment in his building as a way out of her means, and at a price she is able to afford, Freya hesitates before accepting his kind offer. For me, that would set off alarm bells! I mean, no one would offer something that is so obviously too good to be true without a great big whopping catch attached to it. That's just how life is. No one does anything for nothing. For a start, she knows nothing about this man, Dr Marsden. Is he even a doctor? She googled him but found nothing at all relating to him. Another alarm bell. The fact that the apartment is in Kensington, and a stone's throw away from the home of Prince William and his family, where even the air that you breathe is out of her budget would be yet another red flag. Why would anyone offer her an apartment in such an affluent area for next to nothing? Because she and her daughter are "the right kind of people"? What does that even mean?
Even so, Freya and Skye move in to Adder House (that name alone has me thinking of snakes!) the following weekend with the help of her friends Brenna and Viv. Of course Dr and Mrs Marsden are on hand to help as well and don't seem at all pleased that her friends are there to assist. In fact, the strange elderly couple like to involve themselves in their tenants' lives just a little too much. And there is something a little off about the Dr and Audrey Marsden...a touch of the Addams family about them.
Freya and Skye are no sooner settled when strange things begin to happen. Noises in the walls. Furniture being moved. A camera suddenly installed. Voices from another room. Screams. Buzzing. Scraping. Soon Freya starts to feel trapped as she worries about her mental health and begins to feel paranoid. Is she being gaslighted? Or is there something more sinister hidden in the walls of Adder House?
When she hears whispers of another woman and her daughter having lived there before them and a tragedy that claimed the life of the young mother, Freya starts to wonder what happened to them. But Dr Marsden claims that no one else has lived in their apartment and that they are the first. Is he telling the truth or is he hiding a more sinister truth? One thing is for sure...behind the doors of Adder House NOTHING is as it seems.
And then just as we're getting comfortable, there is a tale from the past. One hundred years ago in 1920, the story of young mother Beatrice and her 11 month old baby son Douglas unfolds in several alternating chapters through a journal and several old recordings from a Professor John Watson detailing the stages of an experiment I found to be, whilst simplistic, somewhat cruel and barbaric. In fact, I was horrified. These chapters added an even more eerie feel to the already creepy story.
As with Kim's books, THE APARTMENT is told in Freya's first person narrative so we get to feel her fear and paranoia building as if it were the reader housed in that creepy apartment. One thing I have discovered is that while they are generally called "flats" in the UK, in the more affluent areas they are referred to as "apartments" for that more upscale feel. And Adder House was definitely that, situated in the extremely wealthy area of Kensington.
With a nice steady pace, THE APARTMENT is an enjoyable quick read I devoured in a matter of hours. The chilling aspect within the pages has you turning them at the speed of light to uncover the truth of what is truly going on.
I love Kim's books and THE APARTMENT is no different, although I must admit the ending left me feeling a little cheated, I guess you could say. It wasn't at all what I expected. Although having said that, I don't know what I expected. I guess a conclusion where everything neatly fell into place as with Kim's other books. The tension was extremely palpable throughout but when it came to the climatic build at the end, I admit to wondering the purpose of it all. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was an incredibly engaging read. It's just that ending....was a little unbelievable.
Still, THE APARTMENT is a creepy thriller that will appeal to a wide audience. Just don't expect the usual Kim Slater style...because this isn't it.
I would like to thank #KLSlater, #NetGalley and #AmazonPublishingUK for an ARC of #TheApartment in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
For many years, Kim sent her work out to literary agents and collected an impressive stack of rejection slips. At the age of 40 she went back to Nottingham Trent University and now has an MA in Creative Writing.
Before graduating in 2012, she gained literary agent representation and a book deal. As Kim says, 'it was a fairytale ... at the end of a very long road!'
Kim is a full-time writer. She has one daughter, two stepsons and lives with her husband in Nottingham.
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