'Buy my stepfather's ghost' read the e-mail. So Jude did. He bought it, in the shape of the dead man's suit, delivered in a heart-shaped box, because he wanted it: because his fans ate up that kind of story. It was perfect for his collection: the genuine skulls and the bones, the real honest-to-God snuff movie, the occult books and all the rest of the paraphanalia that goes along with his kind of hard/goth rock.
 
But the rest of his collection doesn't make the house feel cold. The bones don't make the dogs bark; the movie doesn't make Jude feel as if he's being watched. And none of the artefacts bring a vengeful old ghost with black scribbles over his eyes out of the shadows to chase Jude out of his home, and make him run for his life ... Joe Hill is an award winning writer recently revealed to be the son of Stephen King.

Reviews

"A fast-paced journey on wheels borrowed from hell's used-car lot, and there aren't a lot of comfort breaks...The pictures [Hill] painted colored my dreams and darkened my mood even after I'd put the book down." (Cleveland Plain Dealer )

"A relentlessly scary ghost story." (Bookseller (London) )

"Powerful . . . a fast-paced plot that crackles with expertly planted surprises and revelations . . . a truly memorable debut." (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

"You can't go wrong with Heart-Shaped Box." Top Five Fiction-Books of 2007 (The Observer )

[Hill]'s got horror down pat, and his debut is hair-raising fun." (Kirkus Reviews )

Author Biography

Joe Hill has already won numerous lliterary awards for his acclaimed short fiction, which has appeared in literary, mystery and horror collections and magazines in Britain and America and been collsectexd together in the multi-award-winning 20th CENTURY GHOSTS. Joe lives in New England with his family.