Review of Hex

Blurb: Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay 'til death. Whoever settles, 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. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children's bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened or the consequences will be too terrible to bear.

The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into dark, medieval practices of the distant past.

Review: Black Springs is a cursed town. The Black Rock Witch haunts the citizens, walking the streets and appearing randomly in homes. If anyone touches her, they will die. If her eyes ever open, everyone will die. The teenagers of the town are sick of being stuck under the Emergency Decree which keeps the haunting a secret from the rest of the world and makes Black Springs a prison. They plan to go viral with everything, but first they have to survive what's coming.

This is a supernatural horror book that has left me looking twice at dark corners of the house. I haven't read anything in a long time that creeped me out this much. The premise of this story is unique and brilliant. A witch haunts a whole town, and the way the town runs is built upon the haunting. They have their own laws, beliefs, and behaviors. Some folks call her Gramma and others taunt her. Since they can't touch the witch, they have learned to hide her in plain sight from outsiders. It's a different world in the middle of modern day New York state. It shocked me at first how casual citizens seemed seeing the witch. (Until things started to go downhill!) There would be no way I could ever be casual about it. I would have been happy to read more of everyday life over the 300 years the witch had been haunting Black Springs.

Great cast of characters, and the story is told mostly from the point of view of four of them. One pair I liked is Tyler and his father. A daring teen and his scientific father. The author managed to portray genuine emotion in this supernatural spiral into hell. There were twists that I never saw coming, even in the middle of the book. I did guess one of the bigger twists, but it didn't ruin anything for me. The author is called a British Stephen King, and in a way, I can see it. He focuses on characterization, and the story blew me away yet the ending wasn't quite as great. It's still one of the best horror books I've read in a long time. Plus, that cover! Love it.

You can find Thomas Olde Heuvelt on his site and buy the book here.