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Episode Thirteen Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Craig DiLouie (Author), Gregory D. Barnett (Narrator), Sam Slade (Narrator),
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 2,313 ratings
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From the macabre mind of a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, this heart-pounding novel of horror and psychological suspense takes a ghost hunting reality TV crew into a world they could never have imagined.

Fade to Black is the newest hit ghost hunting reality TV show. Led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin, it delivers weekly hauntings investigated by a dedicated team of ghost hunting experts.

Episode Thirteen takes them to every ghost hunter's holy grail: the Paranormal Research Foundation. This brooding, derelict mansion holds secrets and clues about bizarre experiments that took place there in the 1970s. It's also famously haunted, and the team hopes their scientific techniques and high tech gear will prove it. But as the house begins to reveal itself to them, proof of an afterlife might not be everything Matt dreamed of. A story told in broken pieces, in tapes, journals, and correspondence, this is the story of Episode Thirteen—and how everything went terribly, horribly wrong.

"An epistolary descent into a living nightmare . . . well-written and genuinely unsettling. Fans of paranormal documentaries, ghost-hunting shows, and found-footage horror will lose their minds over this one."—Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award winning author of Kin

“A beautiful Russian doll of a story… Episode Thirteen hooks you, creeps you out, and then it overwhelms you. It’s House of Leaves meets Haunting of Hill House, in all the best possible ways.”—Peter Clines, NYT bestselling author of The Broken Room

For more from Craig DiLouie, check out:

The Children of Red Peak

Our War

One of Us

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

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  1. Listening Length
    9 hours and 47 minutes
  2. Author
    Craig DiLouie
  3. Narrator
    Gregory D. Barnett, see all
  4. Audible release date
    January 24, 2023
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Redhook
  7. ASIN
    B0B844LQ1Y
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 9 hours and 47 minutes
Author Craig DiLouie
Narrator Gregory D. Barnett, Sam Slade, Kimberly Bonny, Louis B. Jack, James Lewis, Jay Aaseng
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date January 24, 2023
Publisher Redhook
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B0B844LQ1Y
Best Sellers Rank #7,651 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#20 in Ghost Horror Fiction
#61 in Ghost Fiction
#768 in Suspense (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
2,313 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the storyline enjoyable and intellectual. They also disagree on the plot, with some finding it creative and building a good amount of dread, while others say it's disjointed and never truly scary. Opinions are mixed on the writing style, with Some finding it intensely readable, while other find it ridiculous, muddled, and clichéd. Readers also have mixed feelings about the characters, with those finding them interesting and creepy, while still others find their interactions weakly written.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

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StorylinePlotWriting styleCharactersPacingBook ending
57 customers mention "Storyline"48 positive9 negative

Customers find the storyline enjoyable, excellent, and well-designed. They also say the pacing and plotting keep them hooked. Readers also say it starts strong with a promising premise and is one of the most original ghost stories they've read.

"Good story, bit confusing at times, but I really liked it. I like the format of the story as well, very creative." Read more

"...What will stick with me, though, is the experience. Utterly engaged, I felt for this book what the characters felt for their investigation, and in a..." Read more

"...Overall, it’s a decent book. It won’t take long to read due to the formatting. If you like found footage horror, I’d say give it a shot...." Read more

"...half was kind of dragging but once you hit the last 150 pages it really packed a punch. Definitely recommend." Read more

35 customers mention "Plot"19 positive16 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the plot. Some find it thought-provoking, scary, and creepy. They also say the setting is adequately creepy and the characters are interesting. However, others feel the story is disjointed, moving along slowly, and not about scares.

"...I like the format of the story as well, very creative." Read more

"...the story was really ramping up in terms of horror, it takes an odd science fiction twist that I admittedly didn’t care for a whole lot...." Read more

"...the point regarding the reading experience, I thought the allure of it all was infectious...." Read more

"...The book's biggest shortcoming comes when it shifts from horror to science fiction, leaving behind the atmospheric dread that was initially well-..." Read more

16 customers mention "Writing style"7 positive9 negative

Customers are mixed about the writing style. Some find the book intensely readable with engaging characters, building tension, and big scares. Others say it's unlistenable due to ridiculous narration, reads like a movie novelization, and is poorly written. They also mention the writing is very plain, cringeworthy, muddled, boring, and clichéd.

"Good story, bit confusing at times, but I really liked it. I like the format of the story as well, very creative." Read more

"I loved the way this is written. Showing different perspectives and unraveling little by little. Unexpected ending! I dig it 😉 pun intended...." Read more

"This was almost unlistenable due to the ridiculous narration. Other than characters Jessica and Matt, all the others were 100% cringeworthy...." Read more

"...Centers on ghost hunters and a tv show. Not a difficult read. Easy to tackle almost seems like young adult lit. Fun for something quick." Read more

14 customers mention "Characters"9 positive5 negative

Customers are mixed about the characters. Some find them interesting, while others say the interactions between characters are weakly written.

"...The characters are solid, though they tend to stick to familiar horror tropes and may not engage readers as deeply as one might hope...." Read more

"This book is definitely flawed. The writing for the one WOC character is awkward, she's a stereotype at times, and honestly, the ending could be..." Read more

"...And the novel's format allows all the characters, believers and skeptics alike, to have their moment in the spotlight and opportunity to make their..." Read more

"...I enjoyed the diverse personalities and motivations of the team members and the pacing/plotting of the story was well designed...." Read more

9 customers mention "Pacing"5 positive4 negative

Customers are mixed about the pacing. Some mention that the types of chapters kept the novel moving at a good pace, while others say that the first half was kind of dragging.

"...It also makes for pretty brisk pacing. However, I think that also sort of hurt it as well...." Read more

"...The first half was kind of dragging but once you hit the last 150 pages it really packed a punch. Definitely recommend." Read more

"...conversations, and other types of chapters kept the novel moving at a good pace, even if it occasionally strains credulity to think that a..." Read more

"...her sister was an unnecessary trick that fell flat and quickly became annoying...." Read more

9 customers mention "Book ending"0 positive9 negative

Customers find the ending of the book unnecessary and annoying.

"...The ending was…weird. It left me with more questions rather than answers, and maybe that was the intent...." Read more

"...when Jessica was texting her sister was an unnecessary trick that fell flat and quickly became annoying...." Read more

"...the ending of a horror story is the hardest part, and this ending falls a little flat for me, but not to the extent that it ruins what was a great..." Read more

"...the majority of this book, and the ride it took me on, but the ending was just meh to me. It could have had way more of an impact." Read more

Creative Haunting Epistolary Styled
5 out of 5 stars
Creative Haunting Epistolary Styled
Epistolary or experimental styled novels are on the top of my preferred reading list and Episode Thirteen is positively an excellent read. The novel kept me engaged the entire time, and at times rattled me to the core with its thought provoking script. Hopefully Craig DiLouie writes another in this style.
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Top reviews from the United States

Kristina
4.0 out of 5 stars ghost story
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2024
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Good story, bit confusing at times, but I really liked it. I like the format of the story as well, very creative.
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Timothy Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Blair Witch Meets Mike Flanagan's Haunting of Hill House in Book Form
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2023
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It’s been a while since I’ve read a good ghost story, and there’s a reason for that. The genre has become so defined by its tropes that it’s formed its own subgenre of reality TV, which itself has tropes. Genres evolve, but between evolutions, they fall out of favor, the proverbial haunted house going inactive during the daylight hours.

Now, I’m loving what Mike Flanagan is doing with ghost stories on film. He seems to be progressing the genre into character-driven territory in which the horror is driven by environment instead of gorey thrills. As above, so below, what Flanagan brings to film, Craig DiLouie is bringing to literature.

His latest, Episode Thirteen is a further evolution to the ghost story genre, taking a ghost hunting reality TV show and fictionalizing one particular hunt where the show maybe gets a little too real.

The Episode Thirteen pitch goes something like this: An ensemble cast of characters producing a ghost hunting TV show (called Fade to Black) have had a successful debut season but are searching for a place to shoot their finale, which could give them the best chance of being renewed for another go-around. At Foundation House, in rural Virginia, where a team of paranormal scientists once conducted torturous experiments and then disappeared, our heroes may have found what they were looking for. The ghost hunters try their playbook at Foundation House, but as pressure from the studio increases and bizarre encounters and discoveries occur, they start to suspect they’re going to need some new tools for this one.

One of the things I find interesting about Craig’s work, in general, is he’s always trying something new. His novels aren’t challenging, per se, to the reader, but he’s challenging himself in ways many writers don’t. Instead of playing it safe and simply sticking to what he’s good at, Craig seems to be working his way down a literary bucket list, and for my money, he nails every one. Supernatural ghost thriller Episode Thirteen is another testament to his ability to try new things and execute well on the first try.

Written in epistolary form, Episode Thirteen presents itself as a story told through found documents. The intent here is apparently to model itself off of a found-footage film, but a book obviously can’t replicate that (that’s just physics). Cleverly, Craig works in a kind of ghost character who performs the role of the narrator, a meta-fictional “editor,” who opens the book with a note. This character has transcribed the found footage and occasionally breaks in to offer context, description, and even some insight. What I appreciated about this is the narrator has a presence in the story, something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently (the narrator as character). It’s subtle, but sometimes Episode Thirteen’s narrator breaks through with a quip, observation, or flash judgment. He appears to be totally objective, but his subjectivity sometimes breaks through just enough to give the narration some seasoning so as not to be bland, something that can trouble reported stories in epistolary form.

What always gets me about Craig’s novels is they are incredibly well focused, and that is true in Episode Thirteen. It seems to me, as a faithful reader, the writer knows precisely the story he’s telling me, something so many writers seem to struggle with. Ask almost any writer what they’re story is about, and they’ll almost invariably fumble. At least when reading the finished product, Craig’s books never seem that way to me. There are two things that are very important about this: 1). As I get older, my patience with literature is waning, so meandering stories sometimes feel like they are wasting my time. It isn’t that I can’t appreciate the journey; it’s that I want to know we have a destination. 2). Trust.

Trust is something I’m not sure we talk about enough with regard to the writer-reader relationship. Too many authors take my interest for granted, assuming since I picked up their book, I must be willing to follow them unquestioningly wherever they go. I never feel that way about Craig’s books, not even the ones you might describe as a “slow burn.” Intent is always apparent, and Episode Thirteen’s pitch all but bakes that in as the story unfolds in ways that maybe aren’t terribly surprising but are no less satisfying and fulfilling.

More to the point regarding the reading experience, I thought the allure of it all was infectious. Craig made me feel for the story what the characters feel for their investigation. That kind of parity is something I think every author chases with every story they tell, but so few of us actually achieve it. There’s empathy, and then there’s transcendence and transfer, empathy triggering something greater. I was utterly immersed in and engaged with Episode Thirteen. The whole thing is a marvelous meta experience in what draws us to the dark, and there’s a really fascinating revelation to be had at the end of this one. Maybe, Episode Thirteen suggests, we’re drawn to the darkness with the promise of illumination.

Yep, that’s a metaphor for knowledge. As I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately (why I’m compelled toward dark fantasy and horror), Episode Thirteen provided the right epiphany at the right time for me.

Beyond the grand scale, one of the most fascinating aspects of Episode Thirteen is the characters in the book are all identifiably pieces of a singular human identity. Don’t mistake that as a suggestion that they’re stereotypes. They are never stereotypes. But we do see spotlights shined on finer points of them, the stuff that’s important for the story Craig is telling. Fundamentally, the Greeks pondering about rhetoric might have classified some of these characters in a certain way: We have logos, the character who approaches hauntings through science and reason. We have pathos, the character who infuses the investigation with their passion and open-mindedness, the one who gets us to care about a question we may never be able to answer. We have ethos, the veteran who’s tangled with the darkness before and lends some credibility to phenomena. We also have the audience incarnate in the cameraman, and maybe this idea falls apart with the fifth character, an actress who may actually be the most reasonable of the ensemble and who has the greatest personal stake in a son she needs to get back to. There was a time while reading I thought she would be our avatar, the one person in the story who would do what we would all hope we’d do. Maybe she’s the context or the purpose of the rhetorical situation.

But anyways, examining Episode Thirteen this way, we can view these characters as pieces of ourselves (<--the point). Sure, in the midst of a haunting, we’d like to think we’d approach everything rationally but still maintain our passion and not do anything to undermine the credibility of the investigation, but would we? Interestingly, Craig plays with our expectations of these characters, each crossing the lines into the other Greek concepts until we come to understand none of these qualities live in perfect isolation of each other, just as no one is defined entirely by one quality, lest we become stereotypes, right?

As criticisms go, the book handles one of my biggest ones: the stakes. The team here has had a good first season, but their odds of renewal seem long. The trouble with that was I didn’t understand why I should care. Three of our five main characters aren’t particularly invested in the show, and the other two seem like they will continue ghost hunting regardless of whether they're filming (one of them seems to actually prefer the cameras to be off). The team’s leader, however, is so likable that he was enough to get me invested at least for the time it takes for the question of, well, are there ghosts in Foundation House? to present itself. The book evolves and raises the stakes as you hope and expect, so no worries there. If you pick this one up and feel the drag through the first act, stick with it. Trust Craig.

Episode Thirteen isn’t a book that offered me some grand insight into humanity that will stick with me for years. It’s too subtle for that. There’s an idea that’s quite compelling regarding knowing the impossible, and it rears its ghostly little head later in the book. Thing is, Episode Thirteen could get oppressively philosophical with that idea very quickly (either a bug or a feature of my own writing that I continue to struggle with), but I think Craig is too disciplined and focused for that. The novel gives you just enough to chew on so that you can take it with you if you want, but it doesn’t force that upon you by any means.

What will stick with me, though, is the experience. Utterly engaged, I felt for this book what the characters felt for their investigation, and in a book comprising literal documentation, I find that an accomplishment worthy of appreciation. The trouble with the epistolary form is it can so often fall to the extremes: either mind-numbingly boring and distant or awkwardly intimate and raw to the point of violation. Episode Thirteen never wavers toward either side. It may sometimes approach the edge and peek over it, but perhaps as a product of the trust Craig builds with the reader, there’s never a hint of vertigo.

If you’re looking for a ghost story, something like the Blair Witch meets Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House in book form, I whole-heartedly recommend this one.
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Steven Trowbridge
3.0 out of 5 stars A decent read, but with conflicting genres??
Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2023
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So I was going to use a rather crude analogy to describe “Episode Thirteen.” But instead, I’ll just say it felt like constant blue balling in terms of what the story wanted to do and be. The book starts out with a pretty decent atmosphere with suspense and uncertainty. Seemingly like a perfect start to a found footage haunted house story, except in book form. Well about halfway through, just as I thought the story was really ramping up in terms of horror, it takes an odd science fiction twist that I admittedly didn’t care for a whole lot. I can appreciate Dilouie trying to do something different with this sub genre of horror, I just wish I had known beforehand that that would’ve been what it was. For me, it just didn’t work too well. Paranormal horror and science fiction, for me at least, just don’t blend together that well. At least I didn’t feel like it did here. I can appreciate, and have appreciated, novels not being what I expect them to be. But sometimes there’s nothing wrong either with a book being exactly what it is advertised to be, or any other sort of medium of entertainment for that matter. When I saw that Craig DiLouie had written what was essentially a book form of a found footage horror story, I jumped and immediately got it. I’ve greatly enjoyed the work I’ve read from DiLouie thus far (One of us, Children of Red Peak), and so I figured he’d knock it out of the park with this one. Sadly, not exactly so for me.

To be clear, it wasn’t all bad. Towards the end I found that the story regained some of its horror atmosphere, and I would say the last 50-80 pages or so were some of the best. The increasingly panicked and stressed and claustrophobic journal entries from several of our characters was a nice touch and very unsettling. As well as the actual footage parts of the book that took place in the end part of the novel. The beginning was also decent as well, and I did like the way the book was set up and written, in e-mails, journal entries, interviews, and found footage. It also makes for pretty brisk pacing. However, I think that also sort of hurt it as well.

I couldn’t quite connect with all the characters in this story. I felt like the most fleshed out character was Matt, and I think I felt the most for him. MAYBE Claire as well, though I did find her chapters to be tedious at times due to all the scientific jargon that’s thrown around and seemingly just to be there. As she is the one who “debunks” the ghost and spirits on the show Matt and herself are running. The other characters DO get some backstory and we do learn a bit about each, but I feel like the format and the way the book was written really hindered any further character development we could have had with any of them. All in all the characters weren’t bad or one dimensional per se, but I think they all could have been developed a bit more, with the exception of Matt.

The ending was…weird. It left me with more questions rather than answers, and maybe that was the intent. It would sort of match the theme of the story as the crew is constantly trying to theorize and figure out the spirits and the haunting and what may be causing it or what may be beyond it. Perhaps we’re supposed to theorize ourselves about the ending. Either way though, I found it a bit disappointing, as I wish at least Matt and Claire could’ve come out as more developed people, and as a more developed couple that understood each other more. Just after all the characters sacrificed and went through, they could’ve had some sort of win at least. But then again, as most found footage horror movies go, I guess it was bound to turn out that way with the characters in the end.

Overall, it’s a decent book. It won’t take long to read due to the formatting. If you like found footage horror, I’d say give it a shot. Just don’t expect it to be horror through and through like a lot of the blurbs would have you believe. Not DiLouie’s strongest work, in my opinion, but certainly not bad either.
3 people found this helpful
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Reese Battles
4.0 out of 5 stars Slow burn
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2024
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I loved the energy toward the end of the book. It was impossible to put down once I got past the middle. The first half was kind of dragging but once you hit the last 150 pages it really packed a punch. Definitely recommend.
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Tara Tannenbaum
5.0 out of 5 stars Easily my favorite haunted house book
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2024
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This read was excellent! It scared me, which is hard to do. The subtle horror leaves one feeling anxious about what is coming next. Loved it!
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Top reviews from other countries

Bryna Adamo
4.0 out of 5 stars Fun! Exciting! Full of all Ghost Hunters favourite things!
Reviewed in Canada on February 8, 2024
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Episode 13 was so entertaining in its use of emails, hot sheets, footage, diagrams, texts etc to tell this story.The characters and the house were so amazingingly contrived and exposed in the novel that I felt like I was in the aftermath of what happened in this location. It did drag on for a little while but like any one who is an avid "ghost hunter" show enthusist we are use to a little frustration and boredom. It was whimiscal, it was haunting, it gave me the hebie geebies at times. I overall had a lot of fun it! The ending kind of kicked me in the gut. I would recommend to anyone who enjoys ghosts and their hunters. Very entertaining.
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San
3.0 out of 5 stars Weird edition
Reviewed in Spain on July 19, 2024
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The book is good, but the edition has a really weird material.
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Jess
4.0 out of 5 stars Creepy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 15, 2023
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I went in with low expectations as some of the other reviews said it wasn’t good and I didn’t know how well this type of story would translate into a book and not a tv show/movie but I was pleasantly surprised, it was a good story. I really enjoyed the way it was written and it kept me reading and wanting to know what happened next. It had an ending that I didn’t expect which I liked. I didn’t think it was scary but definitely creepy
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Nadine JAC
3.0 out of 5 stars Grandosity masquerades as storytelling
Reviewed in Australia on January 18, 2024
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In 1972, five scientists disappeared in Foundation House, a secluded mansion in Virginia, after months of conducting questionable experiments on humans in the name of making contact the paranormal.

In the present day, five people go into Foundation House to film their ghost-hunting reality show, Fade to Black:
Matt, a ghost-hunter who, as a child, met the ghost of his mother’s childhood best friend and spent some quality time with her. The situation made him a firm believer in ghosts.
Claire, Matt’s wife, a sceptic and somewhat insufferable scientist who clearly doesn’t dig Matt as much as he digs her. Her role on team Fade to Black
Jessica/Rashida, an actress hired to round out the team by the network - by her own estimation she’s the token person of colour. She’s also a single mother.
Jake, the cameraman who is mostly just in it to film it, but also has a traumatic past
Kevin, the tech guy who’d prefer to be investigating; a hardcore believer, an ex-cop who is pretty convinced he saw a demon at a crime scene and has been haunted by it (hahaha)

To put it another way, Matt’s the naive one, Claire’s the curmudgeon, Jake is the indifferent one, Jessica is the impostor and Kevin is the paranoid, jealous, delusional and toxically masculine one.

Here’s where things get tricky. In this novel, the author has attempted to create a Blair Witch project-style novel, so the text comprises blog entries, transcripts of “raw footage”, inexplicably lengthy journals from everyone, emails, news articles, website pages, etc. It doesn’t feel cohesive, because so much is over-explained while the rest reads like the notes you take when storyboarding a novel, which don’t belong in the novel.

So, what pulled me out? Well, for the first 100 or so pages, I was so ticked off that the writing was sloppy AF and it felt like the structure was the structure only as an excuse for bad writing.

A bigger problem is how grandiose the ending was. It reminded me of the overblown finale in The Children of Red Peak. But also, it kind of reminded me of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. In those final scenes, it just strayed into self- importance and preaching.

On the whole, this was just, ok…
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Dennis Madison
5.0 out of 5 stars Kept me reading to the end
Reviewed in Canada on August 9, 2023
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I rarely give five stars, but this definitely deserved something over four stars. I also don't usually do book reviews, but I almost didn't buy this book because I saw a few poor reviews saying it was "boring". I certainly wasn't bored! This is more of a ghost thriller, not a ghost horror book. If you are looking for a book where ghosts and demons are constantly popping up and producing gory scenes then you probably would find it boring. If you are looking for good character development and a pretty solid plot with some creepiness thrown in then this is for you.
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