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Ash cover art

Ash

By: James Herbert
Narrated by: Steven Pacey
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Summary

David Ash, detective of the paranormal, is sent to the mysterious Comraich Castle, secluded deep in the Scottish countryside, to investigate a strange, high-profile case. A man has been found crucified in a locked room. The reports suggest that the cliff-top castle is being haunted.... Who or what is the reclusive hooded figure that Ash has seen from the window walking across the courtyard in the dead of night? What are the strange, animal-like sounds that come from the surrounding woods? And why are the castle's inhabitants so reluctant to talk about what they have seen? What Ash eventually discovers is truly shocking....

Featuring one of Herbert's best-loved characters, first encountered in The Ghosts of Sleath and Haunted, Ash is a ghost story like no other that will chill you to the marrow.

©2012 James Herbert (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Ash

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Sponsored by Maglite

I’ve not read any James Herbert for a long time so I thought I’d give this a go. The main character was immensely dislikeable and seemed to be more interested in Maglites, which are described at length, than the supernatural. The supernatural elements are mostly irrelevant to the story and the main character doesn’t really achieve anything.
The dialogue is awful and the love interest is a simpering, insecure character who often needs a firm hand from the main character to calm her down .

This also features one of the worst sex scenes I’ve ever heard or read. This is made even worse by the narrator who is not well suited to the text, unless you enjoy your grandad reading you porn. He also can’t pronounce the word “grimace “, which Herbert uses a lot.

Finally, the use of real life personalities is both tacky and unnecessary. I won’t spoil anything by going into any details but there is a scene towards the end which managed to be both tasteless and nauseatingly twee.

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47 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
  • GW
  • 24-06-20

It made me grim-ace, it was so bad....

The narrator's pronunciation of grimace is annoying.
The author's favourite word is grimace.
I genuinely started off thinking this was a 1970s book because the lead female character is so fragile and pathetic.
The sex was embarrassing.
The attempts to shock were desperate.
The 'story' could have been covered in a third of the time.

James Herbert's early books were fantastic. This was not. Repetition. Boredom. Wandering nonesense.

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27 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great!!

This book will not let you stop listening until its finished. Brilliant listen. Lots of twists and turns dark and full of suspense. Good plot all the way through.

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25 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Goes out with a bang!

Was really looking forward to this as I'm a huge James Herbert fan, and loved his previous books from this series, and now I'm gutted there will be no more as the great man has passed. This book was better than expected (and I expected excellence) I couldn't take my headphones out and was a little sad when the book was done. Great performance to go out on RIP Mr Herbert.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Hilariously bad!

Are you a fan of Top Gear? Read the Daily Mail? Don’t understand why Alan Partridge is funny? Then this my friend is the audiobook for you! It’s got everything you could possibly want: it’s got the dashing hero (alcohoc, obviously) and the beautiful doctor who falls in love with him instantly. It’s got maglites. It’s overly long descriptions of cars and firearms. It’s got maglites. It’s got hot lesbian nurses. And it’s got maglites.

The plot, if you can call it that, revolves around a secret Scotish castle where all the world’s most evil people go to see out their days in luxury. When Lord Lucan turned up, I chuckled. When Hitler’s secret lovechild appeared I laughed so hard I had to rewind it because I missed what was said. By the time Colonel Gadaffi and Princess Diana’s ghost turned up I’d given up. The first two-thirds of the book are hilariously bad; the ending is just bad (how do you get a killer man eating spider out of your way? That’s right, you throw a rat at it. But a rat that’s ON FIRE). It’s like the author tried to write a serious version on Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace... and still ended up writing Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.

A terrible book, but it had me laughing out loud all the way through, and I loved it!

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Ash

Brilliant couldn not stop listening love James Herbert books read other books and always enjoyed narrator brought characters to life

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Well Worth The Wait

The Haunted by James Herbert was the first audiobook I listened to as part of the RNIB's Talking Book Service a few years ago, that was before audible of course and since then I've enjoyed many titles via downloads from here, when I saw that Ash was available last week I wasted no time at all in ordering and downloading it.



Well worth the wait, the anticipation of a follow up book with more from David Ash I am certainly not disappointed. The book is well written, in depth, highly descriptive, interesting main characters with brilliantly depicted supporting cast, quite thought provoking in terms of authority figures, the powerful, rich, famous and infamous, some truths thrown in to the mix so it truly is fun and interesting deciding which is which as the story unfolds, brilliant continuity between Ash and The Haunted although if you'd never read The Haunted it wouldn't really matter as Ash is a stand alone book in its own right not strictly a follow up, it is just nice that there are references to the character's past experiences in this one. James Herbert has done exceptionally well to keep me interested, every single day this week I've been excited to sit down and relax to listen to more and more, could hardly leave the book alone always wanting to listen to more.



Read by the brilliant Steven Pacey the characters, castle and surroundings are well and truly brought to life, its made to sound so real the whole experience was incredibly thrilling. Pacey and Herbert are a fantastic combination, after finishing Ash this morning its made me want more from this duo in the future, I certainly hope there is another story in the making for our psychic detective and psychologist characters, I think that would just be brilliant.



Only one small niggle about the plot, Kate does not feature much towards the end, I found that a bit disappointing and would definitely like to hear more from her character as well.



Thank you James and Steven, loved Ash and cant wait to read more.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Unbelievably, undeniably dreadful.....

I lived on James Herbert as a child (in my 40's now) and loved everything he's done but this is absolutely awful.



Lazy mental health stereotypes - patients and professionals, I've not heard the word asylum or lunatic in modern day mental health for years, badly researched poorly executed (okay - I work in mental health so was even more tuned into these references). I didn't like any character - including Ash! Louis was cool but only because the actor has a silly voice that you couldn't help but laugh at...



I was sooooo disappointed with this the best bit about it was the end. Save yourself some money & buy a bottle of wine & a bag of chips instead!

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Its not bad

James Herbert was the guy that got me into reading, i was hooked by him and read everything he did at that time, and I think thats the problem my reading has moved on but James books havent. Dont get me wrong the story has some depth to it and I found I cared about the main characters but it just didnt do it for me.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable listen

I have read some of the reviews on here and am shocked that people found the story to be worthy of only 1 star. Perhaps because this is one of my first Herbert titles, I am not as used to his 'better' works. But I really enjoyed this and the narration of the piece.



I thought it was a good story with vibrant characters that you either loved or hated quite clearly. Some things seemed to fall into place a little too easily. Most notably the entire storyline to do with Cedric Twigg. But besides that, I felt it flowed rather smoothly and certainly enjoyed listening to it.

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11 people found this helpful