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Bad Things Happen Here
By Mark Morris
Published by Flame Tree Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
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Table of Contents
About the Book
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.
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.
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.
Product Details
- Publisher: Flame Tree Press (June 30, 2026)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781805520085
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Raves and Reviews
"A terrifyingly believable modern horror that will hold believers and sceptics in its thrall."
– The Guardian
"Inspired by an episode of Uncanny, Danny Robins’s podcast about real-life spooky phenomena, Bad Things Happen Here is very effective as a metaphor for how the hope and positivity of early adulthood can curdle in middle age but still, with effort, be regained."
– Financial Times
"Bad Things Happen Here is the story of a haunting that injects terror and madness into a handful of old friends, and although the evil is wholly supernatural, Morris deftly layers the psychological attacks with very real-world demons, such as grief, the weight of success, mental health, familial upheaval, and the deep scars of past trauma we carry with us all of our lives."
– Philip Fracassi, author of 'Sarafina'
"Deliciously dark and creepy. Morris will have you seeing shadows from the corner of your eye…"
– Alison Littlewood, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author
"Stellar, creepy horror in the past-comes-back-to-haunt-you vein, Mark Morris’s excellent BAD THINGS HAPPEN HERE gives us a sprawling ensemble, brilliantly drawn, all plagued by an evil they thought they’d left behind. Morris is in top form here. You’ll be genuinely afraid for these characters, and you should be!"
– Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of CARRY ME TO MY GRAVE and ROAD OF BONES
"I was thoroughly invested throughout. I highly recommend delving into a copy of your own."
– Horror Delve
"Old friends, old enmities, and sins that won’t be forgotten. Mark Morris is one of the finest masters of dread. Bad Things Happen Here will have you sleeping with the lights on."
– Angela “A.G.” Slatter, award-winning author of 'A Forest, Darkly'
"Bad Things Happen Here is slow-burn horror done with complete conviction, and the slow burn is entirely the point."
– Ginger Nuts of Horror
"Mark Morris is one of those writers who deserves to be a household name… This is one of the most atmospheric books I've read in a long while… I recommend it to anyone who like character based, creepy as hell horror."
– Marc Lyth
"An effective, chilling, gripping, thrilling horror novel [...] A propulsive ride"
– CriminOlly
"Bad Things Happen Here is undoubtedly slow-burn. [...] The story eschews a 'classic monster' and instead links a myriad of scenes together with a sense of foreboding..."
– Benjamin Kurt Unsworth
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