The Decadence has such a moody cover, I loved the style of it and I was hoping for an isolated and eerie haunted house. Instead I felt like a bunch of people that vaguely know each other go stay in a big house. The characters are in their 20s but seem to have regrets and lives that they are deeply unhappy with. Yes there is a pandemic and lockdown but they all are unlikable and are not very deep yet to seem to have this drained energy. I thought this was an illicit break? Everyone is on furlough and doesn’t seem to have been that negatively impacted by grief for the pandemic. I wouldn’t even call them friends, there is no real banter, stilted conversation and generally just seem to use substances as a way to connect m. I was confused at points as well. We do have an unreliable narrator, which was a great choice for the POV. But they packed to go away to an empty property and then are checking cupboards for food, surely you pack this yourself? The horror element did not make up for the rest for me unfortunately. I think if you like unreliable narrators and books that cover the pandemic then this may be for you. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this advanced reader copy. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

A modern haunted house novel, with complex friendships, strained relationships and something lurking in the background amidst all the tension. The Decadence follows a group of friends as they retreat to Theo’s abandoned family house during the Covid lockdown. It’s creepy and atmospheric, becoming more unsettling as the book progresses, whilst showing the claustrophobia of lockdown and stifling relationships, alongside the literal claustrophobia of the isolated house.

This took me a while to get into, with a large cast of characters to get to know and complicated histories to familiarise yourself with. There were also a lot of political discussions that seemed to be left unfinished and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. An interesting book, but sadly not for me.

Thank you to the publisher for the arc!

This book was outrageously dull. The characters weren’t likeable, which isn’t a problem in and of itself, but they also lacked charisma and/or literally any sympathetic qualities. They were surface-level whiny, and that was about it.

With a book like this I was hoping for something really atmospheric, that would draw me in to this creepy setting. Unfortunately there wasn’t any of that, with the spooky elements being brought in so late on in the story that they were never fully realised.

The book also has a strange relationship with politics. It feels like the author is painfully aware that some of the characters have controversial views and doesn’t want that to reflect badly on her, so every politic moment or conversation fizzles out with a half-hearted ‘there are flaws on every side’. It comes back to the uncharismatic characters; if any of them had any sort of conviction, no matter how flawed or controversial, it would have made for much more interesting tensions between the characters.

I really thought I would love this book, but I basically had to drag myself through it.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

I really love diving into spooky reads for my October ARCs, but this year I found a few coming out in September that I could not resist – The Decadence was one of them.

Jan and her friends are bored during the Covid lockdowns and decide to travel to the abandoned Holt House, inherited by one of the group Theo. However, partying soon turns to something sinister as things start to happen in the house that cannot be explained.

I picked up The Decadence thinking it would be a haunted house story, however it seems to very much be a book about this group of very unlikeable people and their relationships with each other. All of the characters seem self-absorbed, shallow and manipulative. There’s lots of odd discussions about politics which didn’t seem at all relevant to the plot, but then some of the lesser characters – Ursie and Kara, in particular seem barely fleshed out.

The plot is a very slow burn and even as far as 75% of the way through nothing has really happened. The group have arguments, take drugs, eat food and sleep with each other, over and over again. A few odd things happen here and there – a vase moves, a notebook gets pulled apart. I honestly felt at any point that I could just put it down and not pick it back up again and I wouldn’t care, even right towards the end - I just really wasn’t invested. Events come to a bit of a climax involving the history of the house, but as we know so little about the previous inhabitants or even the central character to their story Theo, it didn’t really make much sense. The final chapter was confusing and didn’t really add much to the story either.

Overall, The Decadence is not really a horror story, it’s a story about a group of people taking a lot of drugs who don’t really like each other. I personally found it bland, boring and irrelevant. Thank you to NetGalley & Hodder and Stoughton – Sceptre for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really tried with this one but it just wasn't for me. I thought maybe it was because of the timing but when I took the book back up after a few weeks, I still couldn't manage to get through it.

I couldn’t get into this book and I tried several times. The premise sounds like my cup of tea but unfortunately fell flat.

I didnt connect with the characters, they was all flawed and I found them annoying. Too much politics for me aswell.

The Decadence is a gothic horror story that offers a new take on the country house novel, as a group of friends flee to an old country house during lockdown. Jan and her friends are floundering, and now lockdown has made things even worse as they can't even party to escape their lives. But there is one option: a couple of weeks at the old country house Theo inherited from his great uncle. Fuelled by as many drugs as they could bring, things start falling apart almost immediately, as their interpersonal dramas surface, but quickly it seems to Jan that there's something else going on, and maybe the house isn't the safe retreat they imagined.

While I loved the horror aspects, I did find the majority of this book slow and underwhelming and the characters weren’t very exciting

I don't quite know how to feel about this book. It was strangely compelling but not particularly likeable.

The book was slow to start, and I found it difficult to get into. The characters were unrelatable and mostly unlikeable, but the story became more intriguing and I wanted to keep reading to find out what was going to happen.

There were some pretty, poetic descriptions, but the conversations between the group were littered with annoying discussions about politics and I felt my attention waning at these points.
Towards the end, Jan's visions of historical events didn't feel in keeping with the rest of the book, and I also found myself skimming over these.

There was quite an abrupt but exciting end to the story at Holt House. I did enjoy the final two sections and the way the story wrapped up.

3.5 stars, rounded up.

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

If i had to sum it up in one sentence: a disappointing read. It had potential but was ultimately let down. The characters were unlikeable but not very interesting so they had no redeeming qualities as characters at all. I found the ending to be super disappointing too. There was all this build up and then suddenly things just went off the rails in an unsatisfying way. The vibes were there and each individual element had potential: the horror, the toxic relationships, the politics, the gothic vibes. Really the book should have just focused on one or two of these elements and done them really well instead of half-arsing them all.

This book was such a vibe. Moody, intense, and weirdly relatable in that post lockdown everything is weird kind of way. The group dynamics were messy in the best way and the whole setting had this lowkey creepy energy that kept me hooked. It’s one of those reads that leaves you feeling a bit off in a good way and thinking about it after. Definitely recommend if you're into chaotic friendships and subtle spookiness.

This book seemed right up my street, and it may be because I was reading it during a slump, but I just didn't enjoy it. I've been quite enjoying books of this genre lately, but I don't think I read it at the right time for me. I can admit that there are some good aspects about the book, but nothing really stuck as I was reading it.

The Decadence is a strange book, and one that I think will have a massively dedicated audience, even if it may not appeal to all readers. I say this simply because as much I loved the writing, the themes in general and the ambiguity of the supernatural elements (there are times you have to ask yourself how much of what we experience is due to the massive amount of drugs that the characters take) I never really warmed to any of the characters, finding them -- even Jan, who is the most empathetic of the book, even if her self-confidence is so worn down she finds herself constantly being manipulated or used by the others characters -- to be overly self involved in a very middle class kind of way. While this could work (see Saltburn) the fact that each of the characters felt cut from the same social class made them feel a little more homogenous than expected (even Jan, Jewish, queer and lacking in self esteem comes across as someone who could walk away from all of this and yet somehow chooses not to) which means it's harder for some people to find a character worth rooting for or with a strong sense of what they have to lose.

That said, this may be a bias on the part of the reader more than the characters. If you are able to find a way to understand these characters, what emerges is a dark little tale about a possible haunted house in which a group of friends decide to hunker down during lockdown. Taking too many drugs, drinking too much wine, and allowing old power dynamics to take over their day to day lives, these friends are either being oppressed by an external force or suffering a kind of cabin fever that's bringing out their worst instincts. And as Jan wallows in self-pity over unrequited love and forced situationships, she realises that whatever's happening, it might seem odd right now, but it has the potential to turn very dangerous indeed. Is it connected the house's dark history? Or with their own personal relationships?

Although, for this reader, the characters didn't quite connect, the mechanics of the book work excellently, the writing is strong, and there are some really lovely thematic connections sitting subtly beneath the action. I think the audience for this book is out there (hence four stars rather than three) I don't regret reading it, and would definitely check out Craig's work in the future. But I do think I'd like to feel a little more emotionally engaged with the main characters. I don't want to like them, but I do want to feel like they exist beyond their own solipsistic bubbles (which of course may be entirely the point!)

DNF Review

The Decadence follows a group of twenty-something's making a break for freedom during the COVID pandemic in the UK, to a somewhat dilapidated grand house, owned by one nepo baby in the group.

I eventually had to DNF this book, an unreliable narrator and clichéd characters made this book instantly forgettable and bothersome in equal parts. It was a sad interpretation of elitist culture, feeling rather scathing at times. The group arguing gave me a sour taste in my mouth, seemingly trying to sound realistic, but something wasnt quite right about it. The prose was extremely pretentious, offsetting the sometimes bawdy conversations.

There were few hints of supernatural in the book, which was a shame, as the writing style would have actually suited a horror story, it's almost bardic, a descriptive style of prose. This book could have been a humorous take on the horror genre (not gothic horror, it was not atmospheric enough for that). Something akin to Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, but with ghosts. Alas, it did not deliver.

The premise of this story being a group of friends in an isolated house, with queer characters sounded phenomenal. However, I feel it was slightly flat. I think there were too many characters and the story was overlooked by toxic friendships and politics of which did not really end up being relevant much to the bigger picture. There was no real horror like I was expecting and the ending caught me off guard and felt rushed. However, I did enjoy the slow burn and setting of this story and found it decent enough. Not much to say on this one, it was worth the read just not what I expected.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Although it had a slow start, I really enjoyed the opening and was intrigued by where it seemed to be heading.

That said, the horror element felt underdeveloped and ultimately underwhelming. It was as if the story couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. I think the author should have either fully leaned into the horror or dropped it altogether in favor of exploring the group’s tangled, often toxic relationships. The dynamic between these insufferable yet compelling friends, trapped together in a big, eerie house, had the potential for some great drama, and it started out in that direction.

Instead, much of the book ended up focusing on the group constantly getting high, debating politics, and bickering, all leading to a supernatural climax that didn’t quite land for me.

Still, I enjoyed it for what it was, which is why I’ve given it 3 stars. The book had real potential and I wish the ending hadn’t felt so abrupt.


Plot summary:
A group of friends, disillusioned and restless during lockdown, escape to an abandoned country estate once owned by one of their relatives. Hoping for a carefree getaway filled with drugs and sunshine, they instead find old tensions resurfacing, strained friendships, hidden betrayals, and unresolved conflicts.

As they try to recapture their youth, the eerie presence of Holt House begins to assert itself. The boundary between reality and hallucination blurs, leaving them unsure whether their unraveling is due to substances, personal turmoil, or something far more sinister. Haunted by both the past and the present, their time at Holt House proves transformative
and possibly deadly.

Thank you for the opportunity to read the book as an arc.

I’m going to rate this a 3/5 read. Overall it was not bad just very slow and the end was rushed I had to read it twice.
I felt the characters were all morally grey which is good however they were shallow, we barely have any of their backstory or even a glimpse of their personality.
It had so much potential but the supernatural part was just so strange.
Some political stuff was stated but just forgotten deeper into the book
Most of them were annoying like why is everyone treating the MC as if she’s a servant but they offer her substances and then ask her to be part of them.

I honestly did not see the point to add all the somewhat relationships between characters since they weren’t that deep and felt rushed.

The Decadence by Leon Craig is set to be published by Spectre/Hodder and Stoughton on 25th September 2025.

DNF review

The book follows Jan and her friend Theo, who decide to go to Holt House (the manor Theo inherited from a great-uncle) with their friends for a bender mid-lockdown, under the guise of renovating the old house.

For a story about a group of people older than me (I'm 24, they are in their late twenties/early thirties), the protagonists are incredibly immature and behave more like teenagers, and started to grate on me almost immediately. I understand that this is a trope in horror fiction (Until Dawn springs to mind) but there are ways to write annoying characters who are interesting and I personally didn't find this group interesting enough to make up for the annoyance. By turns unrealistic, pompous and in denial, there's just not enough there to like them in my opinion, especially Jan’s attitude towards the genocide of Palestinians. Ursie is the most bearable of the group and Jan treats her awfully in favour of her strange sexual hangups involving Nadya and this and the group's drug taking become tiresome very soon into the novel.

The horror aspects of the novel take quite a while to even hint at an appearance and where I had reached, 50% of the way through, there was just a very subtle mention at this, certainly not enough to pique my interest.

Having read Linea Maja Ernst’s Waist Deep after I had decided to take a break from The Decadence, it made me feel even more validated in doing so as the premises are somewhat similar, minus the horror elements. Waist Deep was more successful, for me, even just due to the more likeable and realistic characters.

I did not finish The Decadence and for that reason cannot recommend it but I can see why readers would enjoy it, the prose is beautiful and the exploration of the effects of COVID-19 and lockdowns is successful, I just could not get past the characters.

Unfortunately not for me, thank you for arc but all in all confusing and could have been so much better without the indulgence of overindulgence of characters saying that that's mainly what decadence is about.

A blend of literary fiction about drug-fuelled excess and inadvisable sexcapades, with a gothic horror reflecting on race and belonging in modern Britain. However, I found that in trying to hit both marks, the novel falls between them and misses suceeding fully to be either.