Amazon.com Review
Do you sleep with the light on? Are you in the habit of checking your doors and windows before you go to bed? Maybe even checking under your bed? If you are about to crack open Joe Hills chilling thriller Heart-Shaped Box, you might want to rethink your nighttime habits--Hills story about an aging rock star (with a penchant for macabre artifacts) who buys a haunted suit online will scare you silly. But dont take our word for it. We asked bestselling authors (and masters of dark terror tales themselves) Scott Smith, and Harlan Coben to read Heart-Shaped Box and give us their take. Check out their reviews below, and you might want to pick up a nightlight while youre at it. --Daphne Durham
| Guest Reviewer: Scott Smith  In 1993, Scott Smith wowed readers with his stunning debut thriller, A Simple Plan. Thirteen years later, he spooked us again with The Ruins, a horror-thriller about four Americans traveling in Mexico who stumble across a nightmare in the jungle. The set-up for Joe Hills novel, Heart-Shaped Box, is appealingly simple. Jude Coyne, an aging rock star, buys himself a dead mans suit. He acquires it online, lured by the promise that the dead mans ghost will be included in his purchase. Jude thinks this is a joke, of course. He also assumes the seller is a stranger. We soon discover that hes wrong on both counts, however, and from this point on the story moves with an exhilarating urgency. Jude wants the ghost gone the ghost wants Jude dead. We watch, chapter-by-chapter, as they battle for survival. "Watch" is the appropriate word, too, because this is an extremely visual book. Hills prose is lean and precise, and he renders Judes world with impressive confidence. It feels solid, every detail both correct and fresh. And this physicality provides a firm platform for the books otherworldly happenings, which seem all the more frightening for being so securely grounded. Hill has a flawless sense of pacing. His narrative never flags, nor does it ever move so quickly as to outrun itself. And one can sense his literary ambition pushing at the margins of the genre. There are times when his writing, for all its spare efficiency, seems to jump away from him, stopping one small step short of poetry. An e-mail to Jude from the ghost (trust me, its not as absurd as it sounds) could even pass for something ee cummings mightve written, in an especially morbid mood. And toward the end of the book, when Hill describes a trip down deaths "night road" in a 65 Mustang, the passage has a startlingly lyrical beauty. The storys horror ultimately has as much to do with Jude Coynes past--his mistakes, abandonments and betrayals--as with anything supernatural. Jude has caused a lot of pain over the years, moving through life with a carelessness that verges on the callous. His battle with the ghost brings this behavior into sharp relief, forcing him to reflect upon his own capacity for cruelty. This dawning self-awareness leavens the books bleakness and gore (and it is delightfully gory in places) with an unexpected sweetness. Despite our initial impression, Jude is gradually revealed--both to himself and the reader--as an essentially decent, even kind man. Its this kindness, this fledgling ability to love and be loved, that will ultimately be of crucial consequence in his death struggle with the ghost. And its what makes Hills debut not only well-written and terrifying, but also--as it draws to its close--surprisingly moving. So go ahead, take a chance, and open his Heart-Shaped Box. I think youll be happy you did. --Scott Smith | Guest Reviewer: Harlan Coben  Harlan Coben is the author of the beloved Myron Bolitar series about a wisecracking sports agent, as well as stunning stand-alone novels like The Innocent and his breakout thriller Tell No One. His new novel The Woods releases on April 17, 2007. You, dear reader, are obviously somewhat versed in making online purchases, so today, immediately after you click on the yellow "Add to Shopping Cart" on the top right hand corner of this page, why not do an online search and buy something totally unique? Like, say, a vengeful ghost. That is what rock-star Judas Coyne does, thinking it will be a laugh, fun for his "sick-o" collection of such things. It seems a random buy, but Judas soon learns that it is anything but. This particular ghost is one Craddock McDermott, step-father to recent suicide victim and boy, is he cranky. He demands revenge for his step-daughters death, which he blames on Judass shabby treatment of her. Or is he after something else? There are Amazon readers who will give you a better plot summary. Dont read them too closely because Joe Hill provides plenty of fun surprises. Heart-Shaped Box is a true spine-tingler. I dont use that hyphenated word much anymore. We have seen and read it all, havent we? But right away, in the first chapter, there was a subtle line that made the hairs on the back of my neck go up in a way I havent experienced since I first discovered great horror as a teenager. Hill writes with a sure hand. The prose is compelling. Like most memorable tales of horror, this book is more about redemption than scary moments--though Heart-Shaped Box has plenty of scares. They are visceral, shocking and very well done. The characters are flawed and real. The father-son relationship adds texture and surprising poignancy. So heres the thing. My guess is, you wont find a ghost to buy online, but if you read the Heart-Shaped Box, you will be getting something that will haunt you and startle you and stay with you and yes, visit you in your dreams. Sleep well, dear reader. --Harlan Coben |
Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangmans noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude cant help but reach for his wallet.
I will "sell" my stepfathers ghost to the highest bidder. . . .
For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead mans suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isnt afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghostsof an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. Whats one more?
But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. Its the real thing.
And suddenly the suits previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door . . . seated in Judes restored vintage Mustang . . . standing outside his window . . . staring out from his widescreen TV. Waitingwith a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one bony hand. . . .
A multiple-award winner for his short fiction, author Joe Hill immediately vaults into the top echelon of dark fantasists with a blood-chilling roller-coaster ride of a novel, a masterwork brimming with relentless thrills and acid terror.
Rate Points :4.0
Binding :Mass Market Paperback
Label :Harper
Manufacturer :Harper
ProductGroup :Book
Studio :Harper
Publisher :Harper
EAN :9780061147944
Price :$7.99USD
Lowest Price :$3.81USD
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