Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt – Review

Published: April 26, 2016

Publisher: Tor Books

Series: Robert Grim #1

Genre: Horror

Pages: 448 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

Synopsis:
The English language debut of the bestselling Dutch novel, Hex, from Thomas Olde Heuvelt–a Hugo and World Fantasy award nominated talent to watch.

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.

This chilling novel heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in mainstream horror and dark fantasy.

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I’m a little late getting around to my review of this because I read it right around Halloween and it is now…. December. So, I’m mostly running off of my sketchy memory while I type this, but rest assured this book was nothing if not memorable. It scared the hell outta me  – to the point I had to put this down on two separate occasions AND it gave me nightmares. 

When you first pick up the book it throws you right into life in this strange, somewhat isolated town of Black Spring in New York. Something is clearly off, but it’s unclear what exactly that might be – who is this strange being with a doily on their head, just standing in the corner? Why is this normal? And then once you figure it out…. Geez, it’s creepy as hell. The town is cursed and haunted by Katherine, the Black Rock Witch, who was killed centuries ago but still wanders the town with her eyes and mouth sewn shut. She can appear anywhere and often appears in people’s homes and if you get close enough you can hear unearthly whispers. Anyone who lives in the town can never leave for long or they have crushing, suicidal thoughts that will turn into actions. Black Spring has their own high tech surveillance crew whose sole job is to track Katherine and obscure her from the public eye if she appears near a road or in town while outside visitors are present. Robert Grim is the head of the surveillance team and is one of the main characters in this horrific tale, though his chapters are few. 

The true main characters are the Grant family, who we are introduced to right at the confusing start. They moved into the town years prior, unknowing that they could never leave again for longer than an overnight trip. They’ve raised their two sons in this disturbing environment and naturally, one of the sons is beginning to rebel against the strictures of life in a cursed town. What might otherwise be considered mere teenage antics take on a new level of danger when directed at the Black Rock Witch and Tyler and the group of boys will most definitely suffer the consequences. What the Grant family goes through… wow. 

This book is not for the faint of heart and honestly, has a list of trigger warnings a mile long. It’s one of the best horror books I’ve read up to this point and even though I finished it over a month ago, I still think back on it. It was actually terrifying and had me hiding under my covers for a few nights and I’ll wholeheartedly be recommending it to horror fans. Fun tidbit of info – the ending is apparently much different in the US translation than in the original Dutch! There is a second installment, called Oracle which follows Robert Grim, being released in the US in April 2024. You better believe I’ll be reading that one too!