Heart-Shaped Box

by Joe Hill

First published 2007

Judas Coyne has spent his career as a death metal legend collecting bizarre artifacts. His home displays a cookbook for cannibals, a hangman's noose, and a snuff film. When he spots an unusual item for sale online, a dead man's suit that supposedly comes with its own ghost, Coyne can't resist adding it to his collection. The black heart-shaped box arrives at his door containing a musty vintage suit. But this purchase proves different from all his others. The suit's previous owner, an elderly man, materializes wherever Coyne goes. The ghost watches him constantly, waiting with a razor blade dangling from a chain in his skeletal hand. What began as another macabre curiosity becomes a supernatural nightmare that follows Coyne everywhere. The aging rocker discovers that some collectibles extract a price far beyond money, and this particular spirit has unfinished business that threatens to consume everything Coyne holds dear.

Genres: horror, supernatural, thriller, paranormal

Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful

Tropes: death-metal, haunted-objects, supernatural-horror

376 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow

Content warnings: gore, graphic-violence

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