Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

I chose this book as the required reading for the Horror RA class at the Library. I chose it because it was the winner of the Reading List Award (ALA) which celebrates the top genre fiction of the year. Horror is hard to pick out to force someone to read because of the visceral, emotional response it provides. This one seemed safe and yet, even as I type it, the story is haunting me a little bit.

Judas Coyne is an aging rock star with eccentricities that include goth girlfriends 30 years his senior and an odd assortment of macabre items. So, when his gung-ho assistant find a ghost for sale online, he doesn’t hesitate to make the purchase. Only when the ghost shows up does he realize that the purchase is bringing much more than what he bargained for.

What I like about horror and this story especially is that not only is there a ghosty or some creepy thing going on but the real meat lies in the demons that are surrounding the characters and how they have to face their life up to this point to understand how to get out of the situation.  Heart-Shaped Box is definitely a character study of Judas Coyne and the development and back story is really very interesting.  I also felt that the dogs in the story sneeks up on you and before you realized it, you were heavily invested in their part of the story.

I had the pleasure of listening to this on audiobook and the reader, Stephen Long, is exceptional. He captured the voices very well and made for a very creepy and smooth Craddock McDermitt, the ghost haunting Jude. Add to that the ability to shift dialects as the story moved locations and it was delightfully shivery to listen to. 2007,  376 pages.

p.s. Just for fun both Judas and his girlfriend Georgia have myspace pages and Judas has his own imix. Good songs.

Trauma by Graham Masterton

When you think of jobs that would really suck to have, Bonnie’s has to be at the top. She cleans up trauma scenes.  But, with a husband who won’t get a job and a son who is troubled, she really has no choice. As Bonnie’s life builds in frustration, she notices a strange caterpillar at many of her crime scene job locations. It turns out that this caterpillar is a rare butterfly that shouldn’ even be in the United States.  Bonnie is thrown into a series of events that may be caused by an ancient Aztec goddess or ultimately may be committed by Bonnie herself. Quick, suspensful read with a supernatural, folk tale feel. An extremely gory psychological thriller. 2002, 218 pages.

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

Frank is a jerk. Like only the selfish, arrogant in the world can do Frank is bored with life and seeks something extraordinary. What he finds is the Lemarchard box that is rumored to bring unearthly pleasures.   What Frank quickly learns is that the human idea of pleasure is much different from the Cenobite creatures that rule the box. Caught in a different world Frank reaches out to his brother’s wife-whom he had an affair with previously-in hopes of using her to get back to earth.

What ensues is a collection of murders, greed, and lust that is both creepy and very gory. Not for the faint of heart, the novel delves into the true horrors that can exist in the human heart. 1986, 164 pages.

Black Creek Crossing by John Saul

Angel is a quiet and plain 14-year-old who doesn’t fit in. However, when her family moves she is excited about the chance to transform herself and make new friends. What no one tells the family is that the house they got so cheaply in Roundtree, Massachusetts is terribly haunted.  Unfortunately, Angel gets no help from her extremely religious mother Myra and her lazy, alcoholic father Marty.   Angel, with the help of another school outcast, Seth, begins to investigate what happened in the house and the sinister forces that are waiting in the shadows.

The pace is extremely fast but the characters and history are slow to reveal themselves. The point of view the story is told from switches often and they are all intertwined. The tone is very ominous and never lets up. The story could take place anywhere with an ancient haunted house and enough history to date back to the 1600’s. The emphasis is on the people who are reacting to events of past and present for someone has to answer for them all.

Amityville Horror meets Carrie meets the Exorcist. 2004, 358 pages.