Heart-Shaped Box

By: Joe Hill

Narrated by: Stephen Lang

Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals...a used hangman's noose...a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is widely known. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, a thing so terrible-strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet.

I will sell my stepfather's ghost to the highest bidder.

For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isn't afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts: of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What's one more? But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost. It's the real thing.

And suddenly the suit's previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door...seated in Jude's restored vintage Mustang...standing outside his window...staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting - with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one hand.

A multiple award-winner for his short fiction, author Joe Hill immediately vaults into the top echelon of dark fantasists with a masterwork brimming with relentless thrills and acid terror.

©2007 Joe Hill (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

• Audie Award winner, Thriller/Suspense, 2008
• Thriller Award, Best Novel, 2008

"Powerful....[Hill's] subtle and skillful treatment of horrors that could easily have exploded over the top and out of control helps make this a truly memorable debut." (Publishers Weekly)
"Mr. Hill elicits honest empathy for Jude, who turned his stage persona into a nightmare version of his fears and must now figure out what strength he has left for legitimate battles. This dynamic is both frightening and funny, and the book weaves together those two threads in clever ways." (The New York Times)

Headphones- just needed headphones

The story wasn’t awful but it dragged on & earplugs or headphones could have solved part of it.

The music must go

It's a good story weighted down by an excess of descriptive writing in some places. The characters are presented as so unlikeable at the beginning that, at one point, I almost quit listening. I am glad I did not, though. The story picks up the pace, and I began to find redeeming qualities in characters.

The jarring techno music that sets off unexpectedly at times is awful! Really awful. This is my first Joe Hill book. I will be checking to see if his books usually have this kind of music. If so, this will be the last audio book I buy for this author. The music is that bad.

Hooked after the first chapter

Unique take on the traditional ghost story. I enjoyed that the action started almost immediately, and I uncovered/learned things at the same pace as the characters.

excellent book would highly recommend.

great ghost story with lots of twists. don't know how it will end until the last word

Some Expletives

It’s really hard for me to get scared from a book because I’m more visual when I’m reading a fictional horror genre. “Heart-Shaped Box” didn’t do anything for me. I forgot what I was reading before I went to bed and had no nightmares or wasn’t disturbed as I listened where I left off. I was more startled from the techno music at the beginning of each chapter. I’m not sure what the producers were thinking when they were adding the music, but each time the random sound effects came on, I jumped out of my chair and said some expletives. Maybe this is how Joe Hill is trying to scare his readers? His style of fear has always been more like a comic book novel than a full chapter of horror.

Great reader

The story is good and spooky but the way it’s read makes it perfect. It can’t be easy to do the different characters but he nails it.

Great book

Loved the story. Music was weird and too loud to hear story over. Still a great story finished it in one day.

Very intriguing !

I enjoy the book, it had a hint a king in it. Hill is doing a good job. I could see a movie out of this.

Great Book. but weird music between chapters

I would listen to this book again ...... WELL DONE!
except for the weird music that was ODD

Loved it!

Great, creepy story! Loved the characters and the narrator was perfect. This is the first book I've listened to buy this author, but it won't be the last.