This was a lot of fun! I'm a sucker for a good cover and this one reminded me a lot of some personal artwork of mine. It was a rather fast read but I blame that partially on the quick pace which was very fitting for the scenario the characters were in. I enjoyed it quite a bit, if you're looking for fast-paced horror that rounds out well with humor and well-written characters give this a go STAT. And you can never go wrong with demons. ( )

My original Dead Shift audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

‘Lovecraftian’ is the word I’d use to describe this book.

I can also tick that off the list of 'Most Pretentious Things I've Ever Said'.

A homeless man is corrupted by a mysterious and evil book that he finds in suspicious circumstances, eventually convincing him to perform a ritual which allows a demon dimension to cross into ours. Of course, nobody knows that when he arrives at the hospital and undergoes treatment for his broken shoulder otherwise they might have reconsidered their decision to be quite so hospitable.

During his stay at Northcote Hospital, the old man causes an ancient evil to begin infecting the building… it’s too late for most of the inhabitants of the hospital but a few of the staff realise early on that something untoward is going on and try their best to reverse the evil taking over.

The book is dark, gritty and incredibly satisfying.

Though none of the characters are particularly complex, it’s the way that they all work together that makes their journey satisfying. Adding to that Barnes' ambitious decision to give each character a different regional accent, the diversity of a hospital environment is really brought to life.

Chris Barnes did a really good job with this book, keeping the pace flowing and enhancing the overall experience. I was really impressed with the number of accents that he incorporated in this performance, though his attempt at a scouse (Liverpool) accent slightly missed the mark. It's nice to hear a British audiobook which has a bit of variety rather than just the standard BBC English voice.

The story itself isn’t an original premise but there’s a reason demon raising rituals are a classic, this book is well written and compelling which is what stands it apart from the other books in this genre.

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator. ( )

This tale was so spooky and Lovecraftian- any Horror Lover will fly through this! I was lucky enough to receive The Dead Shift, by John Llewellyn Probert, through LibraryThing.com I'd like to have this on my bookshelf, but I won the ebook. I'll have to check into this one in it's physical form.

The story is about things from the lower bowels of Hell wanting to press into our dimension. How do they do it? By taunting us simple mortals on the nearest plane of existence. Through the blood-filled pages of a book, and sheer, evil determination!

Tell me if you've heard this one before: A man is brought to a UK Emergency Room, suffering a self-inflicted injury. He uses his blood to create a diagram onto the floor of his side room that opens and forces him into another dimension while other- unworldly things, for lack of a better word, escape into ours - transforming the hospital into a doorway, and feeding ground for the hellish & grotesque!

No? You haven't heard that before? LOL

​ I love monsters, creatures undefined and deadly, man-eating and morphing plants! This ebook was a true nightmare. Dead Shift takes place in Northcote Hospital, a pretend facility, maybe South England. It started out describing a man on a bloody mission and how he found the mission, and it's dark and ends terribly for everyone nearby...

*For the full review: http://tinyurl.com/jub7pc3
**eBook provided by LibraryThing.com, for an honest review.​ ( )

What starts out as a typical night at the Northcote Hospital soon turns deadly as something is trying to break through into our universe and they are at it's epicenter.

The overall atmosphere and feel of the book was more creepy and unsettling than frightening especially once the action got started and the books pace became more frantic. While I feel the fast pace of the story telling helped keep the story moving without giving you to much time to get bogged down on details, it did make it harder to really let the horror of what was going on sink in and take hold.
And for all that we had so little time to spend with our main characters, they felt like real people and I was invested in what happened to them...a dangerous thing in a book like this.

The Lovecraft influence is strong and obvious but in no way feels derivative, the author has given it his own spin and I loved his take on what the creatures coming through would look like and how they would work. I found his creatures eerie and unsettling and yet also compelling.

I also love the cover art, it definitely clues you in to the fact that you are in for a fun ride.

This was a short, quick and awesome read, it was so much fun and I am looking forward to reading more from this author. ( )

Dead Shift by John Llewellyn Probert is an entertaining read. It takes the Lovecraftean theme adds more action, plus some humor. Most Lovecraft wannabes I find a bit formulaic and so so, but this one had enough originality to it to keep me interested. The ending was somewhat anticlimactic, but seemed as if a sequel were possible. I would have liked a little more characterization. I didn't get really attached to any of the characters, so their deaths didn't have the impact they should have. ( )