'The House of Night and Chain' – David Annandale (Black Library)

I'll be honest, I'm still not a hundred percent sure, sometimes, that there really needs to be a 'Warhammer Horror', not when you look at the rich vein of horror that already runs through the 40K and 'Age of Sigmar' lines. The horror is already there in the way that the warp ensnares the souls of the unwary and in arcane rituals carried out away from the eyes of normal people (although is anyone really normal in these settings...? That's a question for another time). I look at the line and think, why is it making a point of calling itself horror when everyone already knows that Warhammer = Horror?

It's at roughly that point though, that I stop to remind myself that just because I'm middle-aged now, it doesn't mean that I have to act all cantankerous ;o) I love horror and I love Black Library books, of course I'm going to read more of the same!

And it was that attitude that led me to a copy of 'The House of Night and Chain'; a book that I haven't got round to reading until now (which is pretty good, albeit completely accidental, timing on my part). A book that creeped me right out but kept me reading at the same time. A book that any fan of ghost stories (with the occasional dash of horror) would do well to pick up...

At the edge of the city of Valgaast, Malveil awaits. It is a house of darkness. Its halls are filled with history and pain. It knows all secrets, and no weakness can be hidden from it. Now it stirs eagerly because its prey approaches. Colonel Maeson Strock of the Adeptus Ministorum is returning to his ancestral mansion. He is a shell of a man, broken by the horrors of war and personal loss. Colonel Strock has come home to take up the mantel of planetary governor. He hopes he can purge his home world of political corruption. He hopes he can reforge connections with his estranged children. He hopes he can rebuild his life. Malveil will feast on his hopes. Strock believes he has seen the worst of the galaxy’s horrors. Malveil will show him how wrong he is.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there are haunted houses. And of course there are haunted houses, the warp gets everywhere and leaves foul little presents for the unwary. You've never seen a haunted house like Malveil though and I'll wager that you've never read a Warhammer book quite like 'The House of Night and Chain' either. It is a compelling read and very much a book that will make me take the 'Warhammer Horror' line a little more seriously from now on.

David Annandale knows what makes an excellent ghost story, that's pretty much the bottom line here. Not only does he know exactly what ingredients to use, Annandale uses them in the best possible way. Those ingredients are familiar, at least they seem familiar. We have an already broken man returning home to build a new life on the family estate, an estate hiding family secrets that will drive him mad. It's no spoiler to say that, Annandale wears his influences proudly and a result of that is that you will see the ending coming. But that's the whole point of ghost stories and Annandale knows it. It's more about the journey than the ultimate destination and 'The House of Night and Chain' will take you on a journey that I certainly won't forget in a hurry.

Much of that is down to Maeson Strock's, and our, experiences in Malveil, a house so malevolent that it feels like a character in it's own right. Annandale throws everything at Strock (and by extension, us) and to his credit, it all sticks. There's even an exorcism, talk about something for everyone... By the end of the book, I'd been led down so many blind alleys and dealt with so many jump scares (and so many unnerving little touches, the laughter of children for a start...) that I was starting to doubt 'plot reality' myself. Annandale clearly enjoys raising the tension to almost unbearable levels, leaving you hanging for a bit and then hitting you with something viciously scary... or not. It could go either way and that's what keeps you reading.

Honestly, it was like watching 'Event Horizon' (note to self: watch 'Event Horizon' again). I should have seen this coming when I read Annandale's 'The Damnation of Pythos', which was kind of a warm up event for this book now I come to think of it...

If all that wasn't enough, Annandale wraps it all up in the political machinations of an Imperial agricultural planet which is a lot cooler than I just made it sound, sorry... What happens in the council meetings, and in some of the back alleys of the city, not only adds to the pressure on Strock (and throws up a delicious twist right at the end) but also lends the book that 'Warhammer 40K' flavour. Grim times calling for grim measures from grim people. It's just what this book needs and Annandale blends that flavour in superbly.

'The House of Night and Chain' is a book that really steps up a level and leaves you in no doubt that the horror of this universe can be an awful lot more than what an Inquisitor might trap within a pentagram. I'd absolutely recommend to anyone, fan of the setting or not; 'The House of Night and Chain' is a chilling ghost story and an overall excellent tale of that grimdark far future...