#Audiobook Review-‘The Apartment’ by K.L Slater

About the audiobook…

They say every cloud has a silver lining….

When Freya Miller is struck by tragedy, losing her husband and her home within a short time, she is burdened with many worries. The main one being where she and her five-year old daughter, Skye, are going to live. A chance meeting with the charismatic Dr Marsden changes all that. He offers the young mother the most amazing opportunity; an apartment at one of London’s most exclusive addresses for a fraction of the market rental cost. It’s an offer Freya simply can’t refuse. Within a couple of weeks, Freya and Skye are moving into Adder House and meeting the other welcoming residents. They very quickly feel part of the family.

But just when Freya truly believes all her problems are history, a series of strange, unexplained occurrences begin. It leaves Freya with the unshakeable feeling that even when their apartment door is securely locked, she and her daughter are not alone. Freya thought she’d left all her troubles behind her yet she soon realises there are problems here that are far more terrifying than before.

For behind the doors of Adder House, everything is most definitely not as it seems.

Old secrets refuse to stay buried and someone is determined to keep a terrible past, very much alive…

It’s a very obvious thing to say, but I don’t think it can be overlooked, the narrator makes or breaks an audiobook.

Tuppence Middleton knocks it out of the water with this incredible Audible Original , taking on roles from a child,to an American wet nurse,to male doctors, to the elderly residents of Adder House and has you hanging on every word.

A slow burner of a listen, you already are tense with anticipation as you listen to Freya narrate the circumstances that have brought her to live in Adder House and you are just waiting for the shoe to drop. And in doing so, you are at risk of losing sight of the details and the fact that getting to know Skye and Freya increases your emotional attachment to them and then when things become intensely creepy, the involvement is so much the deeper and the effect spine chilling!

Especially when diaries of the house’s previous residents appear and you find out about what happened before the death of Freya’s husband-part of the reason for her move is to avoid having to walk past the house of her husband, Lewis’s mistress, on a daily basis.

Freya is a greiving widow, comounded with having to leave her house and worrying how to deal with her daughter’s grief as well as her own. The offer of the apartment in Adder House is not only timely but too good to be true-what is Dr Marsden after and why? The creepiness is dialled up to 11 as things start happening and you start talking back at the audiobook going ‘No! Don’t do that!’ and ‘What? What is going on?’ Thankfully no one is around to observe this..yikes!

Such as when a beautifully wrapped gift basket arrives for all the children in Skye’s class, announces that she will be leaving soon-news to Skye and her horrified and upset friends. At the age of 5 this is a massive issue and incredibly upsetting. It does not seem like a big issue but it undermines the smooth transition that Freya is trying to effect as she prepares to move into Adder House.

Who did it?

Who has an ulterior motive in their move and why?

What dark secrets are hidden in the walls of Adder House and will the intervention of psychologist best friend Brenna (apologies if that is spelt wrong, I wasn’t sure of that as I am listening) be swift enough to extricate Freya and Skye? This is a fabulous story, the first I have read by KL Slater (for shame!) and will absolutely not be the last.

The sense of menace is powerfully conjured and now I am desperate to know what the real story behind ‘The Apartment ‘ is about!

About the author…

Kim is the million-copy bestselling author of seven psychological crime thrillers. Her eighth thriller,‘Finding Grace’, was  published 14th February 2019 and is available wherever good books are sold!

Kim’s titles are also published in paperback by Sphere in the UK and Grand Central in the USA.

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 and Yorkshire

Twitter @KimLSLater

             @Tuppence

             @AudibleUK

Links-https://klslaterauthor.com/