In 2004 a group of six students, who have newly arrived at university and quickly become friends, are beset by supernatural forces, which seem to centre around a 5th floor room in an otherwise innocuous student hall of residence. So insidious and terrifying is their ordeal that one of the six commits suicide, an act which drives an irreparable wedge between the rest.

Twenty years later, the remaining five friends are all living very different lives. Hannah Prentice is a divorcee with two children, the youngest of whom is being badly bullied at school, and a mother who is showing the first signs of dementia; Jess Maple is a professional artist, who is just about to break into the big time; Steve Lazenby is a successful architect, whose eight-year-old daughter is suffering from delusions and nightmares; Max Bradshaw is a self-employed plumber, happily married with three children, whose fourteen-year-old son has fallen in with the wrong crowd; and Michael Vance, bohemian and charismatic at university, is now a drug-addicted vagrant, who harbours a terrible secret...

Although the five friends have not been in contact for almost two decades, they are gradually drawn back together when their lives begin to fall apart. What happened to them twenty years ago seems to be seeping back into the present, affecting not just them this time, but their children, their partners, their loved ones.

As the terrifying visions, the violence and the madness escalate, they must mobilise forces and once again confront the horror in Room 55.

Hardcover with sprayed edges. A new chiller from multi award winning author of over 50 novels, winner of the New York Festival Radio Award for Best Drama Special and Festival Radio Awards.

About the Author

Morris has written and edited over fifty novels, novellas, short story collections and anthologies. His script work includes audio dramas for Doctor Who, Jago & Litefoot and the Hammer Chillers series. His most recent work includes the Obsidian Heart trilogy (The Wolves of London, The Society of Blood and The Wraiths of War), the original Predator novel Stalking Shadows (co-written with James A. Moore), the official novelization of the Doctor Who 60^th anniversary special Wild Blue Yonder, new audio adaptations of the classic 1971 horror movie Blood on Satan's Claw and the M.R. James ghost story A View From a Hill, a 30^th anniversary short story collection Warts And All, and, as editor, the anthologies After Sundown, Beyond the Veil, Close to Midnight and Darkness Beckons. Blood on Satan's Claw won the New York Festival Radio Award for Best Drama Special, and A View From a Hill won the New York Festival Radio Award for Best Digital Drama Program, and was also awarded Silver at the 2020 Audio & Radio Industry Awards. Mark has won two British Fantasy Awards, and has also been nominated for several Stokers and Shirley Jackson Awards.

Reviews

Morris is an unforgiving author and gives horror fans what they want - whether they like it or not.

-- Sam Tyler, SFBook Review

Expertly crafted horror novel. I had a fantastically good time with it.

-- Olly Clarke, Criminolly

One for those who enjoy slower, more atmospheric stories of weird imagery, Morris gives you a tale of dark forces and human emotion; in a world where so much is rushed and is compressed into instant serotonin, it's nice that That Which Stands Outside not only gets time to breathe but gets to fully wear you down with its chilling brand of halitosis. If you'd like an excuse for reckless spending, I present this novel.

-- Ginger Nuts of Horror * Stephen Volk *

Ultimately, what you have with 'That Which Stands Outside' is a novel packed to the rafters with page after page of creeping, eerie horror that escalates to something more action-packed and intense than you would have ever envisaged. It's a tale rooted in a guardedly whispered folklore, which seeps into your pores with a constant feeling of uneasiness. With something that's not quite right. Something cold and hostile. Something ancient and evil. Damn this is a good read.

-- DLS Reviews

An absolutely face-smacking good time, this one had me hooked from page one and never let go.

-- Steve Stred, 2x Splatterpunk-Nominated author of Mastodon, Father of Lies & Churn the Soil



Book Information
ISBN 9781805520078
Author Mark Morris
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Flame Tree Press
Publisher Flame Tree Publishing
Weight(grams) 198g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 153mm * 28mm