The Burn Line

Jonathan Sims’ The Burn Line combines the best of British class satire with real grindhouse fun. You will laugh, you will cry, you will gnash your teeth with righteous indignation, but most of all you will root for this ragtag gang of underdogs on their literal descent into a modern hell of the London Underground to face off with the demons you wouldn’t expect. Kind Hearts and Coronets meets The Midnight Meat Train! – Bitter Karella, author of MOONFLOW
Rich, character-driven and very scary, The Burn Line is a master-class in sweaty urban horror. Read it on your next shadowy subway ride through the underground and try not to feel like something is watching you from the tunnels – Trevor Henderson, author of SCAREWAVES
Jonathan Sims breathes life into a found family worth rooting for and a mysterious menace worth losing sleep over. The Burn Line is an immersive fever dream that drags you into the depths of a subterranean hell and leaves you gasping for fresh air – Brian McAuley, USA TODAY bestselling author of BREATHE IN, BLEED OUT
I love it. Nobody does the creeping dread of liminal spaces quite like Jonathan Sims; the sweltering hell that is the London Underground in The Burn Line channels the glorious uncanny shiver of some of the best episodes of The Magnus Archives. The endless urban maze and the villainy of the super-rich are some of Sims’ hallmark motifs and it’s scintillating to see them shown in novel-length glory here. The multiple-perspective structure means that we get a many-faceted view of the horror, so the shape of the book is a kind of dark, unnerving gem. – Natasha Pulley
Sims, as the originator of creepy drama podcast The Magnus Archives, is great at getting inside characters’ heads, and in this book each of his five main cast members is given a distinctive viewpoint, making for a pleasingly multi-layered read. There surely can’t be a more nightmarish place than the London Underground at is stifling, sweltering worst. * Financial Times *

Travelling on the London Underground can be a daunting experience. Although tube travel tension has been cranked up in films and music videos, until now a literary equivalent hasn’t existed.

Games designer and writer Jonathan Sims’ novel The Burn Line is set during a scorching hot summer, temperatures on the tube are becoming unbearable as the cost of living crisis hits hard on the streets above. During one morning rush hour, various characters from all walks of life find themselves in the same carriage: a young homeless man begging for money with a plastic cup, a tired tube driver coming off a stressful shift, a civil servant with no job satisfaction and a smug, sharply-dressed city trader. These weary passengers soon find themselves witnesses to something unexpected and shocking that leaves them fighting for their lives.

Sims cleverly sets up a social dilemma: each character comes from different sides of the tracks, with clashing views to match, but now they must work together before they are plucked off on the Central Line. There’s something of a modernised John Wyndham to this novel, with psychological suspense meeting a socially conscious radar, and it makes The Burn Line feel all the more frighteningly real.

Jonathan Sims is a writer, performer and games designer whose work primarily focuses on the macabre, the grotesque, and the gentle touch of creeping dread. He is the mind and the voice behind acclaimed horror podcast The Magnus Archives, high octane space-cabaret The Mechanisms and some of your favourite nightmares. He lives in Walthamstow with the two best cats and an overwhelming backlog of books that he really should get round to.

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