This is quite a dark story from the off. She arrives in a coffin made by her father, rather than by boat. The story is set in Edinburgh in a 9 storey apartment. Each floor is a different part of the story. There is a lot going on within each level and intertwined with each other. I haven't come across this writing style before. It's more like snippets than sentences but it adds an extra layer to the story.

2.75*
A new author to me, and very different to anything that I would normally read.
The book is divided into 3 parts each with 3 characters spread over the 20th century with them all living in a 9 storey tenement building in Edinburgh.
From the beginning it has a very dark supernatural feeling.
They are all unusual colourful characters.
The writing style is quite poetic and to fit with the era has an old fashioned feel to it.
I enjoyed some of the inhabitants stories others I found a bit heavy going especially the ones depicting drug taking, and the Triads.
I was drawn in and intrigued by the blurb, but overall it’s not really for me.

The Luckenbooth is a nine- storey tenement in Central Edinburgh and, in a way, this building is the main character in this novel as it takes on a life of its own. The story revolves round the residents, and their ghosts, who occupied the various flats on the stair over the decades 1910-1999. The series of vignettes all ultimately interlink and, at times, the stories are gruesomely spooky. Fagan has struck a rich seam with this concept and her vivid description of the gloomy grey tenement creates a wonderful backdrop for the cast of residents and their stories. Not a read for the faint-hearted but certainly a highly recommended read for those who want to enjoy atmospheric writing at its best.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel despite there being a slight fantastical element to the story and my usually eschewing fantasy. This is in part due to Fagan’s incredible skills as a writer and also the fact that with the exception of Jessie MacRae; the devils daughter, the rest of the novel is so grittily real that you don’t feel as if the devil is an abstract creation any more and that his daughter is living in a tenement block in Edinburgh seems perfectly normal.
The novel is presented in three parts and within those parts the various chapters are allocated to a different character and decade of the 20th century beginning with Jessie’s appearance in 1910 and ending on the eve of the Millennium in 1999 with Dot. Each part has 3 voices who have 3 chapters each within their part. Fagan ends each person’s chapter leaving you wanting more and until you get into the swing of the novel there is even fear that you may never see that character again and never know what happened to them. I felt one character was weak and didn’t enjoy his segments but the rest were gripping. It was fascinating to see the building change over the years and to hear tenants whose story we had shared be referred to by other tenants. There was a strong connective thread running through all three parts thanks to Jessie MacRae and her lover Elise having an effect on many of the characters lives whether they know it or not.
This book wasn’t marketed (or if it was I managed to miss it!) as an LGBT+ novel but several of the characters are in same sex partnerships which I was really impressed with. Their sexuality wasn’t a plot device or their defining characteristic, they were just strongly and unashamedly gay. There is a fair bit of sexual content in the novel which is a fine line for authors to get right and not make their reader cringe or just plain roll their eyes. Fagan does it beautifully and some passages had me holding my breath while I read.
The book has been marketed as a strong Scottish voice, something lacking in British fiction and I agree entirely. Fagan’s ability to spell words so that when read phonetically your inner voice finds itself with a fluent Edinburgh accent! I’ve seen other novelists use different spellings for many of the words used and I’ve not heard a Scotts accent in my head, in Luckenbooth I did and I loved it it reminded me of Frank McCourt’s ability to write a Limerick accent so perfectly.
I can’t wait to now read Fagan’s other book and will be ready and waiting for her next novel. An easy 5 stars from me.

A very different and dark story based round characters who live at 10 Luckenbooth over several decades. Each is linked in some way living in this tenement that was cursed .
Meet a miscellany of weird , wonderful and disconcerting characters with equally matched storylines.

Great writing but this is just not my kind of book. I prefer my fiction more grounded in reality so a fantastical horned woman and ghosts left me cold. I gave up after Part 2, but I give the novel four stars for the prose.

An extraordinary, very dark novel set in Edinburgh in the early 20th century. There are three main stories set several years apart with an additional motley crew of ne'er do wells. The novel is very strange, sexually explicit and incredibly dark. Very well written and evocative but I did have trouble with the dialect at times. Not sure I fully understood everything in the book and struggled a bit with some of the more fantastical elements.
Overall an intriguing read and not sure I've ever read anything like it before-maybe a touch too clever?

This book is quite dark with ghosts, murder, and explicit sexuality throughout. It is very cleverly written as you follow three sets of characters in three different parts but each living at a different time at 10 Luckenbooth. Although each character is self-contained there are links between the stories and throughout time. The writing is quite poetic and one of those that takes time to consider and absorb.

This is the extraordinary tale of No.10, Luckenbooth Close, whose stories within its storeys leach into every darkened corner, chittering wall, and aching beam.

Each floor has absorbed decades of sorrow and joy. The indelible presence of the unforgettable residents touches the others who replace them, even though they may not entirely comprehend.

The characters are diversely striking. Their persistence and endurance uncommon. From the outside looking in I experienced a foreshadowing that spread until its reach could no longer be restrained or sustained.

"Luckenbooth" is unpredictable, carving its own way and following not a single rule. The dialect in places was unfamiliar to me and as a result I found these platters of speech were a feast I couldn’t wait to digest.

Once could say it’s a strange and unusual beast, in more ways than one.

Three part novel. Each part has three characters living in various years across the 20th century. Each character is given three chapters. What binds them together is they all live or lived in 10 Luckenbooth Close.
The opening features Jessie McRae who rows herself to Edinburgh in a coffin. She says she is the devil's daughter and she has killed her father. This darkness continues through the book with murders, ghosts, violent sex, homosexuality, seances, revenge and gang wars.
I was most impressed with the writing with different styles and voices for each character. It is dark but it is entertaining.