Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"Wild, mesmerizing, perversely witty....A Valentine from hell."
--Janet Maslin, New York Times
The publication of Joe Hill's beautifully textured, deliciously scary debut novel Heart-Shaped Box was greeted with the sort of overwhelming critical acclaim that is rare for a work of skin-crawling supernatural terror. It was cited as a Best Book of the Year by Atlanta magazine, the Tampa Tribune, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the Village Voice, to name but a few. Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling Neil Gaiman of The Sandman, The Graveyard Book, and Anansi Boys fame calls Joe Hill's story of a jaded rock star haunted by a ghost he purchased on the internet, "relentless, gripping, powerful." Open this Heart-Shaped Box from two-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Hill if you dare and see what all the well-deserved hoopla is about.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Rocker Judas Coyne collects creepy stuff like a hangman's noose but when he buys a ghost off the Internet, he's in real trouble. This wraith is the stepfather of a girl Judas loved and left to suicide. Movie rights have already vanished. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
Stoker-winner Hill features a particularly merciless ghost in his powerful first novel. Middle-aged rock star Judas Coyne collects morbid curios for fun, so doesn't think twice about buying a suit advertised at an online auction site as haunted by its dead owner's ghost. Only after it arrives does Judas discover that the suit belonged to Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of one of Coyne's discarded groupies, and that the old man's ghost is a malignant spirit determined to kill Judas in revenge for his stepdaughter's suicide. Judas isn't quite the cad or Craddock the avenging angel this scenario makes them at first, but their true motivations reveal themselves only gradually in a fast-paced plot that crackles with expertly planted surprises and revelations. Hill (20th Century Ghosts) gives his characters believably complex emotional lives that help to anchor the supernatural in psychological reality and prove that (as one character observes) "horror was rooted in sympathy." His subtle and skillful treatment of horrors that could easily have exploded over the top and out of control helps make this a truly memorable debut. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-Hill, two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award for his short fiction, delivers a terrifyingly contemporary twist to the traditional ghost story with his first novel. Aging rock star Judas Coyne is a collector of bizarre and macabre artifacts: a used hangman's noose, a snuff film, and rare books on witchcraft. When he purchases a suit billed in an online auction as the haunted clothes of a recently deceased man, Coyne finds more than he bargained for. Everywhere he looks he sees the twisted spirit of an old and evil man following him and dangling a deadly razor on a chain. He learns that the suit belonged to Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of a former lover who committed suicide shortly after Coyne tossed her out of his life. McDermott, a professional hypnotist prior to his death, swore to destroy Coyne's rock-star life of self-indulgence to avenge her death. The behind-the-scenes look at stardom alongside the frightening pyrotechnics of McDermott's ghost will draw in teens who really enjoy a good scare. But like all good ghost stories, Hill also crafts a deftly plotted mystery as McDermott's true motivations and powers unfold. The depth of character hidden in the dark shadows of both men lifts what could otherwise be a formula supernatural thriller to an impressive debut.-Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
This riveting debut novel is so hip and so frightening that there are sure to be scaredy copycats next year. Aging rock god Jude Coyne is enjoying his semi-retirement as a recluse on his farm with his beloved dogs; his latest groupie-cum-girlfriend, Georgia; and a creepy hobby, collecting objets des macabres. Jude's latest addition to his ghoulish collection is a ghost. The specter resides in an old-fashioned Sunday suit, and, once released from the titular heart-shaped box, begins a mission of revenge. Swinging a curved razor, the black-eyed spirit hypnotizes its victims. Jude's assistant, Danny, hangs himself. Then Georgia sticks a gun in her mouth. Even Jude is not immune to the phantom's murderous lullabies and finds himself in the front seat of his cream-puff Mustang, inhaling carbon monoxide. Hill's tone is gleefully morbid, and his plot plunges and flies like a roller coaster trying to dump all of its shrieking passengers. Both an original effort and an honorable homage to the author's father, horrormeister Stephen King (Hill's real surname is King, too), Heart-Shaped Box heralds the arrival of a horribly good new talent.--Mediatore Stover, Kaite Copyright 2008 Booklist
Kirkus Book Review
A rock star buys a ghost who chases him from New York to Florida, blood spurting all the way. Jude Coyne, after a career in the darker reaches of the rock-music world, lives in upstate New York with Georgia, the latest in a succession of young pierced admirers he calls by the states of their birth. Georgia's predecessor, Florida, is at the heart of the troubles that arrive when Coyne answers an ad offering a ghost, something special to add to his collection of creepy items that includes a Mexican snuff film. The ghost inhabits a garish suit of clothes that arrives in a heart-shaped box, and the situation is a set-up. Knowing Coyne's taste for the weird, Florida's sister has inveigled him into buying the soul of her and Florida's stupendously evil stepfather, Craddock, a stinker who learned a lot of very bad magic as a soldier in Vietnam. The motive is the apparent suicide of Florida, who Coyne sent home after one too many bouts of depression. Craddock's ghost immediately gets into Coyne's head, urging him to murder Georgia and then commit suicide. Coyne resists, but the bad vibes are too much for his gay personal assistant, who flees the farm and hangs himself. Craddock persists in his attack on Coyne, using a ghostly truck as his assault vehicle. Lesser rock stars would have capitulated early on, but Georgia turns out to be full of spunk, and Coyne's German Shepherds are fierce protectors who the ghost greatly fears. To get rid of Craddock, Coyne figures he will have to go to Florida to find out just what did happen to make that ghost such an abusive spirit. Much will be made of the kinship of Hill and his superstar father, Stephen King, but Hill can stand on his own two feet. He's got horror down pat, and his debut is hair-raising fun. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.