(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)
This is my first book by Simon R. Green but I am pretty sure it will not be the last. I entered this book just looking to have a good time, to read about not so bright characters I would love to see in front of some supernatural forces, some shenanigans...
And I was pleasantly surprised to see how wrong I was about the characters. There were a couple I was not sure whether to root for or not, but in general I found myself surrounded by complex people and I was eager to see their reaction to what was happening.
I really loved the “is this really happening” sensation of the whole novel, because it is not just the characters who are confused but the reader as well. In general, a quick, enjoyable read.

This is not my favourite Simon Green novels, there were a couple of moments when I was woundering "What would Ishmael do?"
If this is the beginning of a new series there's a lot of potential, I had fun in reading the banters and the characters.
The problem is that it took a long time before something serious happened and it was a bit anticlimax.
I had fun, I'd like to read another book featuring some of these characters.
It can be appreciated if love this author.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Thank you to NetGalley and Severn House for the digital advance readers copy.

Gah. I really wanted to like this one. It sounded like it would be right up my alley: a bishop, a fading starlet, a comedian, and a cooking show winner are all locked into a haunted hall in England for a night of reality television, and everything goes wrong.

Unfortunately, the plot was slow, predictable, and repetitive. The dialogue was stilted. The characters weren't particularly interesting, nor did we get to know them much beyond surface level. And, honestly, would a legitimate show really lock people in somewhere with absolutely no emergency plan to get them out in case something truly dangerous happened? None of the characters thought that was questionable?

Nothing except exposition happened until over half-way through the book, and, then, when something did happen the characters hardly seemed much bothered, and went back to bickering with each other about exactly the same things they had been bickering about for the first half of the book.

The entire book lacked tension.

Mostly the producer and medium argue about the same thing over and over and over and over (really), and the bishop debates the reality of the supernatural and falls in love with the fading starlet.

Perhaps you could categorize it as a cozy horror thriller, since nothing remotely scary happens.

So, if you'd like a horror-ish novel, but without the frights, this could be for you.

It was a quick read, and if you need something fast and easy, this could do the trick.

*slight violence, a few adult references

A version of “And then there were none” in a haunted house? This was right up my alley. The concept was brilliant but, unfortunately, the execution didn’t work out for me. Writing a book must be very hard, so it’s not easy to give it a bad review but I just didn’t like this. It seems like the author doesn’t know whether he’s trying to produce popcorn fiction or a character study. The cast was unlikable, the dialogues unnatural and the plot inconsistent. One of the characters is irrationally attached to another one in just a few hours. The final reveal was predictable and the whole concept just messy. I should have loved this but the whole thing didn’t work.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Severn House.

Yet another great read can't wait to find out what happens... Keep them coming. Such an unusual format, a great imagination that is able to come up with such plausible storylines.....I am completely engrossed with the characters, A Supernatural locked room mystery....all about a TV ghost hunting show and to boost ratings they start live streaming....then the strange things start to happen!!!! Is it scripted or is it truly supernatural???

What an absolute ride this book was. It gave me all the creepy and eerie vibes that I thought it would. I devoured this in 5 hours, a great story and really likeable characters that make you want to cheer them on! I honestly didn't know what to believe, and when the ending finally revealed its secrets, I was relieved but shocked. Definitely check this one out, released on February 6th, 2024.

I was really excited to get a chance to read this book because I read and enjoyed the Deathstalker series. This story was interesting and I could feel the tension building as the group was locked into the hall and then mysterious things started happening. Plus something was killing off the participants. Was it something supernatural or was it a person? I did enjoy the banter between Diana and Alistair and I did figure out what was happening before the great reveal so I think I enjoyed it, though I am not quite sure how this book could be the first in a series. To me it seemed like a standalone, though if it continues with Alistair and Diana figuring out other mysterious hauntings then it could be fun. Not the author's best work but I liked it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book to read and review.

I’ve been reading this author for a while, including the series started before this one, so my expectations were already set by the time I started this latest series by him. One thing this author doesn’t lack is dialogue. He uses it a lot instead of painting a picture, but that is something I got used to with this author. It did take a little while to get to the heart of the story (i.e., the first murder), and that bogs down the book some. After that, the plot picks up, and it’s a race to the finish. I understand and mostly agree with all the criticisms about this book, but I also enjoyed it. As I read to enjoy myself and to be entertained, this book met those criteria. It isn’t perfect, but it was fun and well-written. 3 ½ rounded up. Recommend. I was provided a complimentary copy which I voluntarily reviewed.

Great concept but I wasn’t able to finish, the formatting made it hard to read. I was so excited to read it. It has the potential for others to love it!

When the has been actress Diane and the Priest Alastair showed up to Stonehaven Townhall to do The Spooky Time show they were the first two there which was a good thing for Alastair because Diane gave him the rundown on the phone he haunted house show. The show invited for well-known personalities to I’ve already mentioned and the other two or a comedian named Toby and a popular game show chef name Indina rounding up the group would be the “psychic“ Leslie in the shows host and producer June. June is ruthless and only cares about the shows the success they will all be locked in Stonehaven town hall for the night and although Alastair initially thinks the show is phoning something June and Leslie know for certain, but the ramifications of their being locked in the hall will be far from imaginary. It seems as far as the contestants go everyone has picked their person and asked for the rest they seem to not get along with them well everyone except for Alastair he is like the father trying to keep all the kids in line including the host. June wants everyone to play it up and pretend to hear stuff and wants the others to go along with it but when they really do hear footsteps and one of them really does die it all becomes way too real. I don’t know if it was intentional but they had some very funny things in the sport and it’s British humor something iPhone so hilarious but they do have some scary moments in the book all in all it was a really great book I enjoyed it thoroughly read it in one setting it isn’t that long and it’s truly an enjoyable read it is a horror story with the locked in the house trope with over the top personalities and I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly highly recommend it. this is the first book I have read by Simon or green but I will not be the last. I want to thank the author the publisher and NetGalley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

This was such a great start to a paranormal mystery series, I always enjoy when people get locked in a haunted place and things go bad. It does everything that I was hoping for from the description and the characters were perfect. I enjoyed going through this with world and thought Simon R. Green did a fantastic job writing this.

This book was fine, I just couldn’t get into it

~This was given by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

"The Holy Terrors" by Simon R. Green is a whole lot of fun. It wasn't what I expected and the story zigs and zags a bit, but my major takeaway was that the story was fun. It doesn't take itself too seriously. It doesn't dig too deep emotionally, but it's entertaining and interesting and moves along at a brisk clip.

By this point, I request Simon R Green novels without even reading the descriptions - but it never really seems to matter if I know what the story is going to be going in or not, because there is a formula to his books that, while sometimes a little repetitive, I generally still always find enjoyable. Such is the case here.

The reality show / haunted house construct is certainly a well-covered one, yet I still found entertaining things here - largely because I enjoy the character tropes that Green falls back on time and time again, regardless of what series he's writing in. There is always a sassy woman who calls everyone darling and love. There is always a strong and somewhat silent type who doesn't want to do violent things but somehow always has to in the name of the greater good. There is always someone needy and someone tough but vulnerable to watch over them, and there is ALWAYS one hard as nails character, often a woman, whose blatant disregard for anyone's interests but their own ultimately leads them to their comeuppance. You'd think this would make his books dull after a while, but it doesn't - it makes each feel like you are returning to the land of old friends..

There's nothing terribly exciting or innovative here, but it was a fun and engaging read with creepy moments, that I found to be a pleasant diversion for an afternoon.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to the brutal reviews. This book was great and well-written. It seems to me people are mad because they aren’t getting something like his previous series. This is an entirely new series with new characters though! It’s different from anything he’s written, and that’s the point! I’m positive that if he had been writing in this vein for his whole career, people wouldn’t have such a bug up their a—. Like I said, the book was well-written and I quite enjoyed it. The characterization was great. I love the partnership between Alistair and Diana, and June was the type of character you can’t help but hate. Great setting too, I can see it being turned into a movie!

Huge thanks to Severn House and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

I thought this looked promising, unfortunately it did not live up to it at all. I did not like this book and I had to DNF.

Several people get chosen to be on a show like Ghost Hunters. They got locked in a haunted hallway, but they’re being filmed of their survival for one night where 20+ people have already been killed. You get a mediocre build up of tension from random sounds in the walls and footsteps but nobody is there. Then people start dying and there ends up being the same clue on all the bodies which already gives away the big reveal that I almost 100% figured out.

I'm a long-time fan of Simon R Green, having followed him since his first book way back in the 1990s. I saw the description of this and was immediately interested!

A group of reluctant D-list celebrities are locked in a haunted building overnight for a low-grade ghost=hunting show. A possibly-fake psychic and a bossy producer make up the team, with cameras everywhere to catch whatever happens.

It seemed at first that this would be a sort of fictional reality-TV tale, akin to 'Ghostwatch', where a publicity-seeking show encounters real supernatural events. For a good portion of the book, the reader is kept wrong-footed as to whether this is the case of not - until it becomes a whodunnit, with the possible ghost as the murderer.

It's a fun idea, and started off well. Sadly, the book seemed to take far too long to get where it was going, and some of the logic behind what's happening seemed flawed. For me, the main bugbear was why a producer would openly and frequently insult their cast and audience while everything's being filmed?

And I guessed the twist/outcome about halfway through the book, from the moment that the 'weapon' was mentioned and then quickly forgotten about until it became relevant again.

I admit to being a bit disappointed, as I'd expected more. But it's a fun little popcorn book, quick to read and entertaining enough. If there's another in the possible series, I'll be back to see what happens next.

Simon R. Green does creepy well. I was glad not to be alone in the house while I read the book. I also enjoy books with a reality show based setting. I don't watch many of those shows, but for some reason I like the use as a setting, particularly in mysteries. That said, I can only give this a disappointing rating because it's basically the same book he's already written.

There's an Ishmael Jones book that is almost identical. Same deserted town beginning, shadows in the house, etc. Even the two main characters mirror Ishmael and Penny.

It truly was unbelievable the rapport that two sets of people developed. I could almost believe the comic since he was such a sad sack, but the rest? No.

All of the books Green writes are short, he really needs to start learning how to develop his characters and bulk up his stories.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Have you ever read a book that had you convinced someone wrote it explicitly to annoy you personally? Simon R. Green's *The Holy Terrors* is that book for me. Spoilers ahead.

The pitch had me hooked immediately. A cast of Z-list celebrities enter a haunted house to film a reality TV show only to find that it's really haunted and everyone is about to die? Sign me up!

I went into this expecting a tense chiller that evoked horror classics like *Ghost Watch* and *The Borderlands* and poked fun at shows like *Most Haunted*. I haven't been more disappointed by something failing to deliver on its promise in a very long time.

It does start strong, introducing us to a pair of main characters who I felt like I could get along with. Alistair is a young bishop who's a hit on TV, and Diana is an aging actress trying to stay relevant and maintain her career. Their initial meeting is fun and we're given a strong sense of who these characters are, and I was optimistic. There's also some fun cynicism aimed at the premise of the show - "Am I to take it you don't much care for the programme?" Alistair asks early on, to which Diana replies "Of course not. I've seen it." - and I was looking forward to seeing it subverted once the action starts and the real haunting begins.

Unfortunately it's all downhill from there. The rest of the characters are flat and one dimensional - Toby, a washed-up comedian who responds to everything with one-liners that aren't even worthy of a child; Leslie, a TV medium and co-host of the show who we never really learn anything about; June, the jaded host of the show who can't decide whether the guests should act scared or not and spends all her time insulting them and the audience; and Indira, the winner of a TV cooking show who turns up with shopping bags full of food and *that's her entire gimmick*. We never learn anything about any of them, even though some of them (comedian and cook, plus Alistair and Diana) develop incredibly deep relationships very quickly. After Indira dies Toby is absolutely distraught, crying over her body and talking about how she was the daughter he never had. We never, ever see any of this relationship develop on the page. Perhaps there's an argument to be made that Green was making a commentary about the way contestants on reality TV forge quick, fake relationships in order to try and avoid getting voted off, but typing that and expecting anybody to take me seriously feels like an incredible stretch. If that's what the aim was here then it doesn't go anywhere far enough to deliver on it.

The characters may be empty and boring but that, unfortunately, isn't the novel's biggest sin. The main problem here is that we're never given any reason to believe anything that we're seeing. Two things contribute to this.

The first is the problem of June, the host. From the moment the group steps through the doors of the allegedly haunted house she spends all her time undermining any attempt to make the haunting feel real. She constantly talks about everything being fake, about how her tech team have "been all over this house" fitting it with hidden cameras and wires and switches to dim the lights. (Having seen *The Borderlands* I assumed this also meant they had hidden speakers inside the walls to make noises, which turned out to be an accurate guess.) She says all this despite the show being broadcast live, telling us that "Derek [the director] will make sure the nice people at home only see and hear what we want them to. He can fade the mikes in and out, and use camera angles to force the audience’s attention to where we want it. We also have a built-in delay, to give him plenty of time to make up his mind."

Unfortunately, we as readers act as the stand-in for the live audience here. The audience may not be able to hear June talking about how it's all fake and how the people who watch these shows are idiots, but we can. Every time she opens her mouth we're reminded that none of this is real, and the contempt with which June treats both her audience and her guests - and thus, us - oozes off the page and poisons the reading experience.

June is also entirely inconsistent in her demands on the guests (and, through them, on us as readers). She wants them to act like they're scared any time something weird happens, but the second they seem to believe that what they're experiencing is real she rolls her eyes and tells them to behave themselves. It's deeply frustrating.

The second issue is that the events are presented to us through Alistair's point of view. We see what he sees and feel what he feels. This means that at some point he has to start believing that what's going on is real, otherwise we can't believe that it's real. The problem lies in the fact that he enters the house believing it's all an act and is never given any reason to doubt it. Green does seem to try to wrestle with this, and we see brief moments of Alistair wanting to believe what's happening is real, but we never tip over into him being actually scared and actually convinced there's something supernatural at play here.

This is also the reason why the ending completely fails to land. After discovering what June has been doing and why people are dying, Alistair somehow convinces her that there are, in fact, supernatural things happening in the house. Her response to this is an irrational, terrified attempt to flee that ultimately ends in her downfall. But there's no reason June would ever believe any of this, because she knows that the whole thing is fake and that she's been in control of it all the entire time. Why would she ever, for a single second, believe that Alistair can summon demons to hurt her? It makes absolutely no sense.

The final insult to the intelligence of the readers comes in the dying words of the novel, as Alistair and Diana stumble out of the house and dub themselves "The Holy Terrors". Does this name call back to anything that happened in the novel? No, absolutely not. Does it feel like they do this purely because Green intends this book to be the first in a series, and this is the name of the series? Yes. It's a final act of cynicism that puts a capstone on a thoroughly miserable reading experience. I feel insulted as a reader, as a fan of horror, and as a fan of locked-room mysteries.

The Verdict: Avoid this.