This a genre bending book. Classified as horror, it is definitely Horror with a capital H. But, it was also so entertaining, the horror was not the first impression you would have when reading. When a young woman takes a job cleaning up death scenes, you'd expect some weird experiences and you do get some of those. But reading this book was like watching a sitcom set in some very unlikely places. I'm not quite sure how to explain how good this book was so that it draws readers from other than horror too. You just need to read the book!!!!

I got Family Business by Jonathan Sims from NetGalley for a fair and honest review.

Family Business by Jonathan Sims tells the story of Diya who after the death of her friend, starts to work for a company that cleans up after people have died.

But the horrors that are caused by her job are nothing to that happen to her because of you gives the jobs to the company.

While horror novels are not normally a genre I read, Family Business by Jonathan Sims is the style that I like. With the focus on psychological fear rather than that of the actual violence that surrounds this genre.

Although for people who like blood and gore there are some scenes in the Family Business that are for them.

What I like about this novel as the way that it examines both death and how people deal with such events, from the morning process, to how people live on through those who are left behind in their memories, which cause such pain.

This was done thorough Diya the main protagonist of the story with how she dealt with the loss of he friend Angie, whom for the life of me could not quit work out the relationship, between me, as it was almost portrayed similar to two ladies living together in an Agatha Christie, novel.

Having said that the what worked really well is the interactions between her work colleagues at slough and son’s which seemed to be a happy place, but had an undercurrent of something underneath especially when they worked for Bill.

All this made Family Business by Jonathan Sims an engaging horror novel.

“We do not disappear after death. Small pieces of our being can remain, persisting in those places that were once so meaningful to us. These traces can be found where we lived or loved or worked, and will linger especially where we died. …. Luckily, there are many extremely effective bleach-based or enzymatic chemical products that can be used to clean them away.”

My thanks to the Orion Publishing Group/Gollancz for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Family Business’ by Jonathan Sims.

It is that wonderful time of the year when plenty of new Gothic and horror novels appear, including spooky houses, tales of ghosts, vampires, witches and all things creepy. Yet ‘Family Business’ was different from the usual horror novel as indicated by its opening discussing cleaning products and processes.

‘Family Business’ starts out quietly as Diya Burman seeks to come to terms with her best friend Angie’s recent death. Seeking a fresh start she joins Slough & Sons - a family firm that cleans up after the recently deceased.

Yet as she clears away the remnants of other people's lives, Diya begins to see things. Disturbing visions that become harder and harder to dismiss as her imagination. Then there is the strange man who keeps turning up at their jobs as if observing. It becomes evident that the Slough family has its secrets.

Diya proved a very sympathetic lead character. I was impressed with Sims’ restraint and how he slowly created a sense of creeping dread that built to an intense conclusion.

While horror isn’t usually noted for its sensitivity, I felt that Sims did well in incorporating themes related to loss and bereavement, especially with respect to friends. There was also enough quirky humour to balance its more disquieting scenes.

Overall, a subtle work of supernatural horror that utilised the seemingly mundane tasks of house clearance and cleaning as a starting point and was comfortable with exploring human emotions alongside the more familiar horror tropes.

Diya Burman's best friend & flatmate, Anita, dies of a brain aneurysm & Diya finds her body. Her life goes into freefall & she loses her job - all she has left is her elderly cat, Winston. What makes it all the more hurtful is that her family & even former classmates don't seem to remember Anita at all. Money is tight & Diya needs a new career & she is surprised to be offered a job with Slough & Sons, a family business that clean up after the deceased have been removed to remove any trace of biohazards.

It's a physically demanding & emotionally taxing job, but Diya is surprised to find herself enjoying working with Frank & his two daughters, Xen & Mary. That is, until she starts getting weird visions where she feels as if she is living out the deceased's last moments. Initially worried she is ill, Diya starts to notice other odd things at the business: the phonecalls to Frank from 'Mr Bill' that seem to lead to jobs, the fact that at a building collapse where the tenant died, the neighbours are adamant that the flat was empty for months, & the fact that another member of the family, Frank's son George, recently died & everyone avoids the subject.

Based on the synopsis & cover I thought this was thriller rather than a horror, but right from the start, there's a current of the supernatural running through the story. The author does a good job of making the reader empathise with Diya's predicament & the sense of menace gradually builds. The main issue I found was with the pacing - the pacing was so very slow right up until the end, when it suddenly did a 180 & sped through the conclusion. I was left a little disappointed but it hasn't put me off reading more by the author, in fact I have 'Thirteen Storeys' in my TBR pile.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Orion Publishing Group/Gollancz, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

It was really a strange way how I found this book and thought it would be something completely different- but instead I welcomed this horror novel and simply could not put it down!

Honestly - horror is not my preferred to go category, however this was a ride and a half!

I truly enjoyed the relatable main character and the family too- they were well written and thoroughly fleshed out bunch of characters.
The descriptions and the motivations for cleaning after a loss of life were very fascinating to me in a way I did not believe possible.

A true strong 4 stars from me and I will definitely be following this author to read more of his books, as the writing was superb!

Thank you, netgalley for the ARC!

Well developed characters, really good plot, creepy, horrific, supernatural going on, the author dealt with the topic of death and subsequent cleaning up after in a different perspective. It’sa slow burn but wonderfully done!

I chose to read and review a free eARC of Family Business but that has in no way influenced my review.

After reading Sims's debut, Thirteen Storeys, a couple of years ago I've been keeping an eye out for more from this fantastic writer. There was something about Thirteen Storeys which grabbed my attention immediately, a feeling in my gut that this was most definitely an author to watch. So, when Family Business landed on my radar, I jumped at the chance to read it. Pushing my current read aside and not really bothering to read the blurb before getting stuck in. It's a Jonathan Sims novel after all! And I'm so glad I did. Addictive, dark and unsettling, I thoroughly enjoyed being immersed in Sims's world once again.

Diya Burman's world has fallen apart following the death of her best friend and flatmate, Angie. Diya no longer knows who she is, nor how to live her life, quitting her job and spending her days depressed and alone. When she is offered a job with Slough and Sons she reluctantly accepts, knowing that at some point she'll need to start paying the bills. But Diya has no experience in the Slough family business, which is cleaning up after someone has died. As Diya learns the ropes, she begins to notice that some jobs are a lot more intense and upsetting than others. She notices a strange man hanging around outside where they are working, and Diya herself starts to have strange, unexplained visions. Determined to find out what's going on she starts to dig a little deeper into the Slough family history. But the past is best left alone, and Diya had better be careful otherwise this job will be the death of her...

Family Business is a very well-written supernatural horror with buckets of suspense to keep the reader on their toes and turning the pages. This book felt quite different to the author's debut in that we really get to see the bones of his characters in this latest release. Whereas the format of Thirteen Storeys only allowed for a tantalising glimpse into the characters' lives. And oh boy, I loved the author's characterisation. Diya Burman, in particular, felt a fully fleshed out, living, breathing person and I was fully immersed in her journey. I was willing her on, perched on the edge of my seat wondering where the author was going to take the story. I hadn't a clue what was going to happen to Diya and the Slough family. But I was gripped and there was no way I was going to put the book down until I knew the truth!

Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. Family Business is a well-written, compelling novel with themes of grief, the sanctity of memory and a hard look at social inequality. The book moves at a steady pace drawing the reader into the plot and enabling them to get to know the characters well before the explosive ending. There is a deeply unsettling sense throughout the book of something unstoppable heading your way. Something that can't be explained, something you don't really want to think about until you inevitably come face to face with it. And I loved how the author was able to achieve that palpable menace throughout, that incoming malevolence. Marvellous stuff! Family Business is a very readable, very powerful novel which drew me in and didn't let go until the terrifying end. Dark, suspenseful and will leave the reader with lots to think about. Recommended.

I really enjoyed Thirteen Storeys when I read that a while back so I was quite excited and intrigued to get my hand on this, his latest book. And I wasn't disappointed!
We follow Diya as her world is going to rat... Her best friend, and flatmate, has just died and, well, that has triggered the rest of her life pretty much imploding. But it is a chance offer of a job that starts to allow her to believe that things might not always be so bad. Ironically, it's a job with a cleaning company. One which specialises in cleaning up after the recently departed. In fact the one she herself used to help with her clean-up. So she begins her work in earnest, learning on the job from the two daughters Xen and Mary. Staring with the more simple, and less yukky, tasks of sorting through their stuff, and then the easier cleaning. But here is where things get a bit weird as she starts to experience things, feeling first and then she starts to slip away and, well, sort of hallucinate. But not in a good way. It appears that there is darkness afoot. And then there's the question of what happened to the third sibling George who "quit" the family firm...
This is juicy, and horrible and all things delightful! I know that's contradictory but there you are! It's over the top but deliciously so and just about manages to stay the right side of farce whilst still retaining a decent amount of horror, gore and bonkers.
The characters are brilliant and really bring the story to life. I loved Diya, she's so much more than she thinks she is and that's quite humbling. Her interactions with Xen and Mary are well crafted and wholly believable. Especially when it all starts to go a bit South!
The story is a tad slow initially as it builds up - and that build up is wholly necessary as the foundations need to be strong to hold up the escalation when it really gets going. And it definitely does that! Leaving me breathless and satisfied.
All in all a cracking read that I have no hesitation in recommending for fans of the genre. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

FAMILY BUSINESS is about a family-run cleaning service who attend death scenes after the police have been and gone and chemically clean away the evidence. When Diya, freshly grieving the death of her best friend, is brought on board, she thinks she’ll never get used to the scent of death. But that’s not all she’s taking with her from the scenes she visits – Diya starts experiencing visions, echos of the experiences of the people who’ve died. Afraid to tell anyone, she quickly learns there are more to the jobs than meets the eye.

I adored Jonathan Sims’s THIRTEEN STORIES and FAMILY BUSINESS hits all the same notes his debut did – unsettling, at times truly terrifying, and ultimately a deeper conversation about people and a specific social issue. It’s a story about loss, about family, and about who we get to remember after they’re gone. Sims is impossibly talented, and his future books are going to be auto-buys for me.

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I have never read anything by Mr Sims before but I do like to dip into the horror genre on occasion however, this is what I would call more supernatural with a bit of horror thrown in rather than a full-blown horror but that's ok just like this was an ok read.

What I enjoyed: the characters were interesting and believable, the "monster" was something a bit different and the plot was pretty unique.

What let it down for me: it was a bit of a slow burn with not a lot happening for quite a lot of the book although there was an increasing sense of unease which built up from the start but it just seemed to take a long time to get there unfortunately.

Whilst I wouldn't say this was one of my favourites in this genre, I did like Mr Sim's writing style and I would be tempted to read his future books and I must give my thanks to The Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of Family Business.

Family Business is told from the perspective of a young woman named Diya. She has left her dead-end job in an office to work another job cleaning up the remains of the dead with a questionable business named Slough & Sons.

After meeting Frank, the owner of Slough & Sons, and his two daughters Mary and Xen, when they come to clear her home after the death of her best friend Angie, she is offered the job. Filling the boots of George, Frank’s son who died in an accident, Diya is taken through a whirlwind of events that make her question her own sanity.
I loved the absolute insanity that is this book. It is told from multiple perspectives, but the story is told directly from Diya and how she tackles the world that she is thrown into. Diya is a complex character trying to deal with the death of her best friend, weird memory loss and strange visions that start to take over her everyday life.

I highly recommend this book if you like unexpected twists and turns, a gore induced novel that makes you wonder what the hell is going on. This is the first book I have read by Jonathan Sims and I cannot wait to read more of his work.

Jonny Sims is one of a very small handful of authors whose work I will read (or often in his case, listen to) immediately, no questions asked, no summary needed. Jonny Sims made it, so I will consume it.

This book came to me at very funny time. Funny-coincidental, not funny-haha. Like I said a moment ago, I don’t need to vet my Jonny Sims content before I add it to my TBR; he’s got a standing invitation to take up space there any time he wants. The funny thing is, this book almost reads as though it was written very extremely specifically for me to read at this exact moment in my life. Earlier this year, I purchased my first home. The previous owner had passed away from brain cancer, leaving no family behind, so when I got the house, it was still full of her old possessions. The past eight months of my life have been spent cleaning up the remains of someone else’s life, getting glimpses into the person she must have been through the things she left behind. Many, many trips to the dump and many more donation runs to goodwill, the house is feeling less and less like living in the shadow of someone else’s life.

This tangent is relevant.

I am, in a far less dark and far more mundane way, doing something of the same job that Diya found herself in. I found so much to resonate with in the more and reflective portions of the narrative, in the quiet tragedy of a life unremembered and sorted through by strangers. This was, unexpectedly, the strength of the novel for me. Jonny Sims has a way of displaying observations about the world that make them feel meaningful – not just in the ways that he pulls horror from the mundane, but also in the ways that he shines a light on the small injustices of the world, the ones that hide in the places that society overlooks. He can pull the tragedy of the world into sharp and horrific focus.

I think The Magnus Archives will “haunt” Jonny’s career as a novelist, in that it is so very tempting to sort his newer work into the categories laid out by the Fears, the entities he fleshed out so well in his much acclaimed podcast. I now find myself sorting most horror into the 15 fears – a lasting take away from the Magnus Archives that I simply can’t shake. I suspect Jonny’s audience will have a hard time not doing so here. Mr. Bill is so well suited as an avatar of the Lonely, after all.

That being said, I think this novel is an outstanding standalone piece. It’s stronger than his first novel, Thirteen Storeys, both structurally and conceptually (I loved that book, but it wavers a bit in the structure department). I think he is well on his way to a spectacular career as a novelist.

Threaded With Empathy…
Slough & Sons - the firm that cleans up. After sudden death. When Diya joins, following a loss of her own, she’s in for more than a few surprises. It’s clear to Diya that all is not well and soon enough a bizarre series of events will prove her right. With a straight talking narrative, a cast of credible and realistic characters and a tale which descends from the mystery to the downright horror and threaded not only with menace but also with empathy and often laced with a dark humour, this is both compelling and compulsive.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC. This has not affected my review.

I really enjoyed this, but at this point I’ll read anything Jonathan Sims writes. It’s a dark, creepy read centred around a team of cleaners who specialise in cleaning up after the dead. Sometimes, this is straightforward, but often it can be grim, particularly when the person has been dead for a while.

It’s these people the book concerns itself with. The people who go unmissed, who are easily forgotten. Sims writes horror with a flavour of social justice: these people are the homeless, the lonely, the poor, and he poses the question of why they should be forgotten. It’s deeply effective.

Of course, this is Sims, so there is a deliciously creepy twist. For me, it never reached the peaks of the Magnus Archives, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Family business is an interesting horror/thriller that will stretch the imagination and maybe make you want to make connections with your fellow humans. The book starts with Diya, who has quit her job and is still reeling and broken from the sudden death of her childhood friend & flatmate Angie, she calls in a specialist cleaning company, Slough & Sons, who can clean up bodily fluids etc. Then out of the blue, Xen one of the daughters of the owner Frank, call her and offer her a job, she decides to join the family business cleaning up after the displaced, lost & murdered.
It is a slow burner but there is something about it that keeps you interested and the whole thing is wrapped up neatly in the end. This is definitely a author I will look out for in the future.

I thought I knew what to expect when I started reading this book but I was so wrong. I was captivated with the whole storyline. Diya is dealing with a recent bereavement and a new job. But not any job, she is working as a death cleaner and soon things start to take a very dark turn. Full of horror and so much more. Once I started reading I could not put this book down I HAD TO KNOW THE TRUTH!!! Clever, well written with wonderful characters. A well deserved 4.5 stars. Read it yourself and see if you agree.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.

Have you ever thought about who does some of those really unpleasant jobs in the world? This one shows us one of them. It tells us of Diya, a young woman looking for a fresh start in life. Having had a succession of mundane jobs, this one comes out of the blue.

Whilst Slough and Sons are performing their services on Diya’s best friend Angie, who has recently died in their shared flat, Diya is offered a job. Being recently unemployed and needing the money, she accepts the job as ‘cleaner’ with the firm, a long-standing family business. However, their cleaning is not the usual sort of thing you expect but the cleaning of places where people have recently deceased – whether of natural causes or in an accident. Diya’s job, along with sisters Xen and Mary and father Frank, is to go in and dispose of the person’s worldly goods and possessions. Cleaning the floors and beds, yes, but also emptying properties of goods and possessions the deceased left behind, often so that the landlord can rent again as soon as possible.

Much of the first part of the story reads like something out of a police procedural novel. There are a number of dead bodies the team are called to, all having died in depressing ways. Diya finds that the money is very good, but she is expected to be on call 24-7. After her initial qualms she finds she actually enjoys the job and the company, especially Xen, even if Frank is a little remote and younger sister Mary claims that she can ‘sense things’.

Then Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination, or a psychotic episode. It doesn’t help that Diya keeps seeing a strange man that keeps turning up in the distance at their jobs. She questions whether this is real or whether her already stressed life is causing her to hallucinate.

Not only that, but all is not as it seems with the Slough family. Why won't they speak about their own recent loss, that of Frank’s son George?

I’ve mentioned before that Jonathan is the originator of <em>The Magnus Files</em> award-winning audio podcast, and it shows in the pacing of this novel.

If it was badly done,  <em>Family Business</em> could come across as a supernatural version of the TV soap opera <em>Eastenders</em>, but it is really not. Instead, it begins slowly and yet irresistibly, completely engaging from the start, settling us into what feels like the real world of modern-day London nicely. This, of course, makes the idea that something strange is going on as it gently seeps into the narrative be even more impactful. What happens is built up so skilfully that when the horror really starts it doesn’t destroy my sense of disbelief and instead seems entirely logical, even when it is combined with ancient pacts and occult-ish powers.

It also helps that Jonathan has developed these characters nicely, so that by the end I felt like I knew them. Diya is great, a likeable young woman with generally good intentions who is struggling to deal with grief and loneliness whilst taking on board a job she wasn’t sure about. Frank Slough is taciturn though not unfriendly, a sort of grumpy father who genuinely cares for his family and his workers, is dealing with his own grief in his own way. His daughters are opposites of each other.  Xen is all energy, the livewire who generates a lot of energy and enthusiasm as well as being a possible romantic interest for Diya. That aspect of the story is subtle, and I thought well done. Mary is the quiet one, a deep-thinker and a more sensitive soul, which gives us a nice range of varied characters that all seem to work well together.

The ending is quite dramatic, as we’d expect, but fast paced and quite graphic in places. Most of all, the ending is definite enough to make the book work as a stand-alone, although I am sure that there could be more, should the author wish it to happen. I’m happy though to leave this one as it stands, as a memorable one-off. As much as I liked <em>Thirteen Storeys,</em> I felt that this one was better.

<em>Family Business</em> is a great Halloween read I found difficult to put down. A realistic setting, with likeable characters and some genuinely icky and creepy moments along the way. As such I wholeheartedly recommend it to you on our Countdown to Halloween.

I really enjoy a well paced horror and this was exactly what I wanted - crime scene cleanup, creepy characters and a finale that caps off a great read. This is an easy recommendation if you’re seeking something to chill and thrill over the Halloween period. Go for it.

Diya is introduced to the Slough family when her best friend dies, and they offer her a job. From the first day clearing up after a death, she gets strange visions connected to the deceased. As time goes on a strange man appears everywhere. What is his connection to the family, and why does the horror appear only to the lonely?
Great horror novel that gets scarier by the page!

I previously enjoyed Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims, which was one of my favourite reads for 2020 so I was excited to start Family Business. They are two very different books, but Sims is a master of the horror genre and this new book really hooks you in and keeps the unease high before unleashing a paranormal threat on the main characters as the book rushes to an action-packed finale.

Our main character is Diya, a woman who has lost her way after her roommate dies. She starts a new job with Slough and Sons, a family business who perform deceased clean-ups. The family are strange enough, but when Diya starts getting visions and her memories start to fade, she soon realises things are not all they seem. Diya is a well-rounded character and the portrayal of grief over her roommate is really touchingly drawn. The other characters are all well-defined and easily relatable – the gothic Xen, spiritual Mary and gruff Frank all have their own secrets but are still interesting in their own right. The deaths that they clean up are gory or even just sad at times and the flashbacks to see into their minds at the time of their death is a nice twist.

The build up to the paranormal element with the introduction of Mr Bill is written carefully and slowly, steadily building the tension and allowing space for a suspension of disbelief. Some of the scenes where Diya is running from the man with the eternal stretched smile were very creepy and difficult to read at night! I do perhaps think that some of the middle of the book could have been trimmed or edited down as it did feel like it dragged in a few places. This becomes particularly apparent when compared to the action-packed finale.

Overall Family Business is a spooky horror, perfect for Halloween reading on a cold, dark night. Thank you to NetGalley & Orion Publishing Group – Gollancz for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.