Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

The Blurb On The Back:

”Buy my stepfather’s ghost, read the email.” So Jude did.

When Judas Coyne heard someone was selling a ghost on the internet, there was no question what he was going to do. It was perfect for his collection of the macabre and the grotesque: the cannibal’s cookbook, the witch’s confession, the authentic snuff movie. As an ageing death-metal-rock-God, buying a ghost almost qualifies as a business expense.

Besides, Jude thinks he knows all about ghosts. Jude has been haunted for years … by the spirits of bandmates dead and gone, the spectre of the abusive father he fled as a child, and the memory of the girl he abandoned, who killed herself. But this ghost is different. Delivered to his doorstep in a black heart-shaped box, the latest addition to Jude’s collection makes the house feel cold. It makes the dogs bark. And it means to chase Jude from his home and make him run for his life …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Joe Hill’s breakthrough horror novel has some genuinely creepy moments and slick writing with strong themes of selfishness, guilt and regret. I really enjoyed the shift from domestic haunting to haunted road trip as Judas and his girlfriend, Georgia, go looking for answers from the ghost’s vendor but the resolution in the final quarter didn’t quite manage to pull it all together and I didn’t believe in the reasoning behind the haunting as it seemed to be based on quite a stretch. That said I did enjoy the book and I will definitely be checking out Hill’s other work.

Dark Satanic Mills by Marcus Sedgwick, Julian Sedgwick, John Higgins and Marc Olivent

The Blurb On The Back:

In the solitude and darkness, upon the darkning Thames, across the whole Island westward, a horrible Shadow of Death.
William Blake, Jerusalem

Set in a near-future Britain, Dark Satanic Mills tracks a young woman’s journey from the flooded landmarks of London to the vast, scorched and abandoned hills of the North. Framed for a murder she did not commit, fearless and resourceful loner Christy has no other choice but to run for her life.

Both a cautionary tale and a rip-roaring trip, Dark Satanic Mills is altogether an intelligent, captivating and thrilling ride – a punked up Wizard of Oz for a new generation, told in exhilarating shades of light and dark.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Marcus and Julian Sedgwick have teamed up with John Higgins and Marc Olivent to produce a dark dystopian graphic novel that draws on William Black’s Jerusalem for its inspiration and structure. The artwork is great – gritty, dark and atmospheric – but the story itself is a slim affair and I really wished had been longer so that there could be more detail on the world the characters live and how it’s been put together because there are so many great ideas at play here (my favourite being the mirrors used to deflect harmful radiation) and a wide cast of characters to get to know. Unfortunately because this is only a single book, there’s no real opportunity to get to know Christy or Tom beyond their superficial characteristics and I found it frustrating that potentially great plot lines (such as the relationship between Christy and her sister) got dropped as the characters storm on to the next event. It’s a perfectly good read but I wanted more from it and I would definitely pick up more books by these guys if they did more graphic novels together.

DARK SATANIC MILLS was released in the United Kingdom on 7th November 2013. Thanks to Walker Books for the ARC of this book.