I like books that just kick right off without any mucking around. With HSB, Joe Hill gives us the ghost in the first few pages and we’re off to the races, which I really appreciate.

Sometimes ghost stories-and haunted house stories, for that matter-go for the slow burn, building anticipation until there’s a grand reveal. From there so begins the journey to find who the old man is, why he’s haunting Jude, and, as things escalate, how to stop him.

When the suit arrives (in a heart-shaped box, as suits do), it doesn’t take long before Jude starts seeing the ghost of a creepy old man dressed in the suit and swinging a pendulum-shaped razor blade hanging on a chain. He has a vast collection of items related to the occult, voodoo, and witchcraft, so when Jude, as he’s mostly called, is alerted to an online auction claiming to sell a haunted suit, he buys in instantly, no questions asked. Judas Coyne-not his real name-is a semi-retired, world famous rock star, along the lines of Ozzy, with a taste for the macabre. Joe Hill managed to do the impossible and create one that’s smack dab in the middle of the road. A lot of times I don’t get into them, but if one manages to get its hooks in me, I’ll usually love it. In his hand, a gleaming razorblade swinging from a chain.Īnd now the jaded rock star who’s seen it all, done it all, has never been so afraid.Ghost stories tend to be hit or miss with me. Craddock is everywhere: on the other side of the bedroom door in Jude’s restored vintage Mustang outside his window, on his television screen. Martin Craddock swears he’s going to settle up with Jude for ruining his daughter’s life. His new acquisition-delivered to his doorstep in a black heart-shaped box-is Anna’s vengeful stepdaddy. Of all the ghosts around him-the abusive father, the battered, resentful child Jude once was, the bandmates he betrayed, Anna, the suicidal girl he loved and dumped-this new one means to haunt him all the way to hell.

Usually the objects were sent by the black-clad fans who made his metal band a legend and made him rich.īut this time, when his personal assistant told him there was a ghost for sale on the Internet, Jude didn’t think twice. The bizarre, the unusual, the grotesque: A cookbook for cannibals. A pulse-pounding, terrifying rollercoaster ride of a supernatural thriller-a remarkable debut novel from a blazing talent that will keep readers spellbound

Joe hill heart shaped box review