Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #97652 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-15
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH
"Joe Hill certainly makes an impressive entrance. He has successfully woven strands of family drama and road movie with his horror, which combines traditional motifs with images all its own; old fashioned ghost stories with uncanny applications of modern technology. Joe Hill is an important new horror voice."

Alex Sarll, PRESS ASSOCIATION
"He's successfully woven strands of family drama and American road movie with his horror, and that horror itself combines traditional motifs with images all its own, old-fashioned ghost stories with uncanny applications of modern technology. Joe Hill's debut is certainly the work of an important new horror voice."

Stuart Weightman, STARBURST
"The slick sensory prose, snappy dialogue and a handful of spooky creative touches amount to a well packaged box of tricks. A satisfying box of Black Magic."

Customer Reviews

Gripping and sinister
Joe Hill proves he can write horror stories as good as his dad, Stephen King. Rock-star Jude Coyne buys a ghost on the internet and the subsequent haunting is terrifying. But Heart-Shaped Box succeeds because, above all else, one cares about the characters Hill creates.

A definite page-turner.
Heart Shaped Box, written by Joe Hill (if you don't recognize the name, google him, he's got a great pedigree), turned out to be a page-turner. I picked up the novel out of sheer curiosity (wanted to see how far the apple fell from the tree) and a real love of the cover art. Not expecting much... after all, Papa casts a long shadow... by the fifth chapter I was hooked.

Heart Shaped Box is about an aging death-metal rock rocker with a fondness for collecting items of the macabre. A cannibal's cookbook; a witches signed confession; a used hangman's noose; snuff films, you get the picture. So naturally when he's told about a dead man's suit (ghost included, free of charge!) auctioned on an ebay-esque site, he sees to it he's the highest bidder. But what first appears to be a random act quickly becomes a life-meets-death case of posthumous revenge.

Hill does a great job of fleshing out his main character, giving him the hard edge necessary to be believable, yet still finding ways to make us care. And when you consider he's incorporating personalities most people shy away from (think hard-edged lunatic fringe), it's doubly impressive.

While I won't say he's a carbon copy of his father, I will say that he's his own unique, interesting, and ultimately readable voice. Wish I could give it 3.5 stars, but in lieu I'm opting for 4. Well worth the investment.

He is not his father
I Thoroughly enjoyed this book. It stands on its own merit and shouldn't be compared to "his father". Heart Shaped Box had a captive and addictive story line. I recommend this to anyone who is looking for horror that is different to those of Dean Koontz and yes, Stephen King. The style is different and exciting.

I am looking forward to some of the other books by Joe Hill and expect that they too will hold the imagination and "unexpected" endings.