Heart-Shaped Box

a chilling, award-winning novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.

Try for £0.00

More purchase options

Heart-Shaped Box

By: Joe Hill

Narrated by: Stephen Lang

Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £17.94

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 . . .

Read by Stephen Lang

(p) 2007 HarperCollins Publishers©2007 Joe Hill

Anthologies & Short Stories

Horror

Short Stories

Scary

Haunted

Anthologies & Short Stories Horror Short Stories Scary Haunted

Most relevant

If you do any research about Joe Hill at all, you’ll quickly realise that he is none other than Joseph Hillstrom King, son of horror master, Stephen King. I had no idea about this when I picked the audiobook out. Honestly, what drew me in was the cover art, followed by the summary. Buying a ghost on Ebay? Sounded right up my street.

If you go into this book expecting Joe to follow in his father’s footsteps you’ll be disappointed. This is not Carrie, or The Shining. However, if you’re prepared to set aside expectations, you may be very pleasantly surprised and more than a little creeped out by this book, which takes a peculiar premise and follows it through to it’s dark conclusion, via the scenic route.

I loved it. It is, for me, less of the ‘psychological horror’ that I am used to being an avid reader of King, and more a traditional gothic ghost story. There is nothing overt or gory, it is all subtly done, in passing. The theme of abuse (psychological, physical and spiritual) runs through the novel but is rarely spoken of outright. It is alluded to but there are few explicit details, the reader is left to surmise what happened.

The fact that it happened to combine three things I absolutely love - Ghost, Goths and German Shepherds - was icing on the cake.

Another thing that intrigued me was the twist, because it is at the beginning of the story. Just when you think you have a grasp of what’s going on and how it’s all going to pan out, everything get’s turned on its head and all of a sudden you realise you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. It is very subtly scary throughout; one of those books that you don’t realise it was creeping you out until you realise it went dark and you suddenly feel the need to close all the curtains and put the light on.

Overall, it’s good, I enjoyed it, I’d read it again, but it fell shy of 5 stars because of the confusing layout of the audiobook. Bookmark your spot or you'll get lost very quickly!