I don't think I'm giving anything away when I point out that Joe Hill is in fact the son of Stephen King, in fact knowing this when you start the book might help you as you go along put out of your mind the idea that perhaps Stephen is once again writing under a pseudonym. The style is very similar, as well it might be growing up with King's influence, and - don't get me wrong - it's not a bad thing neither. The characters are well rounded, believable (insofar as my knowledge of ageing heavy metal musicians with a penchant for ghostly and grisly memoribilia goes) and it is a well paced book with hardly any pasue in the action to make you question why you picked it up.
The premise is that a fifty-something heavy metal musician (Judas Coyne - in Hill's own words; 'morally adrift') buys a ghost in a haunted suit from the internet and from then on his problems never stop, the ghost has a hidden agenda directed squarely at Judas who has to try to work out not only how to stop it but also what it's grudge against him is. As Judas physically travels across America we journey through his life with him as he recalls all the events that could have caused this. Seeing as he makes Ozzy Osbourne look like a boy scout the list of potential suspects is vast indeed!
I gave this book 3 stars, I enjoyed reading it, I would recommend it but I cannot picture myself re-reading it, so it doesn't get the coveted fourth star .... having said that I have heard that the audio book is very impressive and creepy having won the 'Audie Award' in 2008, so I might have to give that a go ... ( )

Heart Shaped Box is a ghost story. It's born from a fresh and cutting-edge angle and never stops from the first page to the finale. Hill creates a great sense of foreboding terror and the ghost in question is both memorable and deeply malevolent. Tension arises from well fleshed out and realistic characterisation, which also allows Hill to pull some emotional kidney punches. Original horror is a treat, and Heart Shaped Box is certainly original and is also well crafted too. A story which will remain in your thoughts for some time after you put it down. Recommended. ( )

Joe Hill is the most promising new horror writer on the horizon. His first book, published to date only in the United Kingdom but due here in October, was a collection of short stories called 20th Century Ghosts. It was a revelation: quirky, brilliant and scary. I gave it a rave review when I first read it, and I still return to those stories every now and then just to take pleasure in seeing how Hill pulls it off.

Hill's first novel, and his first U.S. publication, is Heart-Shaped Box, and it fulfills the promise of those short stories. It contains enough change-ups, chases, oddities and horrific images to keep any seasoned horror reader in goosebumps. Far more accomplished than most first novels, Heart-Shaped Box is the best kind of scary pleasure.

Hill's hero -- or his antihero, depending on how you look at it -- is Judas Coyne, an aging death-metal rocker. He has modeled himself around his stage persona, it seems, posing as a foul-mouthed son of a bitch who takes advantage of the pretty and totally messed up young women who are attracted to his music. Just to add some spice, he has the repulsive hobby of collecting grotesqueries: the skull of a peasant who had been trepanned in the sixteenth century to let demons out, a noose used to hang a man in the nineteenth century, even a genuine snuff film. His hobby makes him the perfect mark when an email from an auction site offers a ghost for sale. He immediately snatches it up, without a thought as to what owning a ghost would actually mean. But then, he assumes it's really nothing more than a dead man's suit with an odd reputation.

Jude is surprised, then, to find that the idea of donning the suit, or seeing his live-in Goth girl (called Georgia because that's the state she's from) in it, deeply repulses him. He's taken aback at his own disgust, as he's made a living out of the disgusting for 30 years. But revulsion is only the beginning.

It turns out that Jude really has bought a ghost. A real, live, dead ghost. And the ghost is malevolent, seeking revenge for the death of someone Jude once knew. That someone loved him, and he rejected her, and the ghost is angry. Soon Jude is running for his life, trying to outrun the ghost by tracking it to its source, while he and Georgia accumulate both physical and psychic injuries. And he's running, too, from his own childhood, his own adulthood, his own sins. The tale begins to twist under one's eyes like a snake, shiny and dangerous, very possibly sufficient to keep the reader awake at night. Or at least until the last page is turned.

Heart-Shaped Box does not contain much of the wild experimentation and newness that characterized 20th Century Ghosts. This is not a fault in the novel, however. To the contrary, it is refreshing to read a good, solid ghost story. It is thrilling to follow this roller coaster, one with unexpected drops and odd, wild turns. The writing is crisp and clean, the characters sharply delineated. Clear your calendar for a day to read this one -- and do so with the lights on.

I should note what is now an open secret: Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King. I only mention this to say that Hill is not King, but his own man. While one can see the influence of the father on the son, it is no more than one would expect King to have had on any writer entering the horror field after growing up on King's novels. This book is entirely Joe Hill's. And it's good.

An aging rocker and a known collector of the morbid and grotesque, Judas Coyne can't pass up bidding on a ghost and his funeral suit that his assistant shows to him on an online auction site. His winning bid on the randomly found item (that just so happens to be a ghost) turns out not to be so random. The seller and the ghost have every intention of getting into Jude's home for the sole purpose of haunting him to death.

This was quite the ghost story. It was one I had trouble putting down. The visuals that Joe Hill presents are truly frightening. The scribbled over eyes of the dead really freaked me out. Hill definitely has some of the horror writing talent of his dad, Stephen King. The reason behind the haunting is surprising and horrible.

An absolutely scary, under the covers, with all the lights on read.

This one is now getting passed on to my Stephen King loving friend. I can't wait to get her reaction to it, see if she likes it just as much. ( )

I really enjoyed this novel about an aging rock star Judas Coyne (who is supposedly contemporary to Ossie Osborn), who has 2 dogs called Angus and Bon (hahaha). Coyne is a collector of the magical, the strange and the macabre, so when a ghost is offered for purchase on the internet, he buys it, along with the dead man's suit. When the suit arrives, it become plain that there is indeed a ghost and that he has a particular vendetta against Coyne. ( )