Nessa Luna
Written on May 31, 2017
The greats of fiction Stephen King and George R. R. Martin lead the fanfare for HEX, so be assured that Thomas Olde Heuvelt's debut English novel is both terrifying and unputdownable in equal measure.
Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay until death. Whoever comes to stay, never leaves.
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Blind and silenced, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children's beds for nights on end. So accustomed to her have the townsfolk become that they often forget she's there. Or what a threat she poses. Because if the stitches are ever cut open, the story goes, the whole town will die.
The curse must not be allowed to spread. The elders of Black Spring have used high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break the strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into a dark nightmare.
- ISBN10 1444793217
- ISBN13 9781444793215
- Publish Date 28 April 2016 (first published 26 April 2016)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 5 March 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Hodder & Stoughton
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 384
- Language English
Reviews
Rinn
Written on Mar 12, 2016
I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. I also took part in the official blog tour. Also posted on my blog, Rinn Reads.
Shortly after starting this book, I knew I’d made a huge mistake.
It was going to stop me from sleeping for a while.I’m not normally too creeped out by books. Unlike films, you can alter how something might look, make it seem a lot less threatening or scary than it actually is. However, when it came to HEX I had troubles ‘adapting’ the book in my head. My housemate was away for a day or two whilst I was reading it, and during that period I wouldn’t touch the book because I couldn’t possibly be alone in the flat at night after reading it.
HEX follows the inhabitants of a small town called Black Rock. It might be your usual image of small town America – if it were not for the 400-year old witch that lives there. Katherine, ‘the Black Rock Witch’, is a seventeenth century woman who is still hanging around the town of Black Rock, four centuries later. With her eyes and mouth sewn shut, she can just appear around the town at random – including in people’s houses. For the residents of Black Rock, this is normal and they’re used to it. But they can’t possibly let outsiders know, so great efforts are made to conceal the existence of Katherine from the rest of the world. Therefore this small American town is in fact under constant surveillance.
Not only is it super creepy that Katherine’s eyes and mouth are sewn shut and there’s obvious fear of what might happen were the stitches to be removed, but I found it absolutely TERRIFYING that she could just basically appear anywhere at any time. Just drifting off to sleep in your warm cosy bed? Oh look, there’s Katherine at the foot of it. HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE USED TO IT. IT WOULD NEVER NOT BE TERRIFYING. Needless to say, I may have slept with the light on that first night after reading HEX, ready to spot Katherine when (because in my mind it was when) she appeared.
What I really like was how modern technology was weaved into this tale of horror. Due to the efforts of the town to prevent knowledge of Katherine reaching elsewhere, it is forbidden to record or photograph Katherine. Despite this, one of the main characters is a rising YouTube star, and as the story progresses him and his friends start taking more risks when it comes to Katherine, which leads to some truly shocking scenes.
So in conclusion… if you’re looking for a creepy read that’ll keep you up late into the night – because it’s both scary and a great read – this is it.
pamela
Written on Nov 17, 2015
Hex is a fascinating social analysis, and Heuvelt shows his characters as products of not just their circumstances, but also as individuals. Each character has enough depth to show their motivation, but not too much that the novel is bogged down with excess description. Everything has a place and a purpose, and nothing in his writing is left to chance. Because of this, we are introduced to a timely tale, that even though it uses the premise of an ancient evil feels incredibly modern and relevant. He teaches us that social fear and personal terror create far more horror than any perception of evil ever does on its own. We are our own worst enemies.
This is not to say that Hex is without fault. The entire plot feels dark, similar to the way Scandinavian crime novels feel in their settings, and so the change of location to rural USA for the English version rather than a Dutch setting felt somehow false. There was no reason to change it, and the novel would have felt far more genuine had the author kept the original I think. It also suffers from obvious statements of importance which made the plot feel a little mechanical in places. The plot would otherwise have been smooth, but statements stating how much worse things were going to get broke the flow.
Overall though, I can’t recommend Hex highly enough. It is a tale for our times with moments of true terror, sadness and sympathy. It is emotive, horrifying and subtly beautiful. It is well worth a read.
You can also read and comment on this review at my blog: http://iblamewizards.com/book-review-hex-by-thomas-olde-heuvelt/