Heart-Shaped Box By Joe Hill.

I was looking forward to reviewing this Novel. One of the people that follow my reviews elsewhere recommended it to me and I love a good Ghost story. I have always liked the atmosphere, the feeling of creeping dread from a master of the genre. So I looked this up and upon seeing the cover and the back-cover text I knew I had to order it. I am quite a nice person but like many nice people I have a Dark side and my dark side mainly consists of giving bad reviews to half baked horror and ghost stories to wannabee authors that just have not got what it takes.
This seemed to fit the bill. Aging rock star (cliche) buys a ghost over the Internet. I was already preparing my vitriolic reply when it was delivered.
There were a number of reasons for this which included the rather ordinary cover, the aging metal rock god cliche and the fact that it is rare that Americans write good ghost stories (though it has been done on occasion, rather our cousins across the Atlantic shine in horror stories) They miss the nuance, the building tension, the; show a little to gain more, mentality of most European ghost story writers.
I was therefore looking forward to venting my spleen (old Scots for telling everyone how terrible it was) yet I am unable to in this case.
Mr Hill, despite using every cliche in the book (but then in Ghost stories who does not) succeeds in creating from a very silly premise a novel that really does work. It is creepy, at times, it is easy to read and has its moments.
I still believe that very few American authors have truly grasped the ethos of the Ghost Story but Mr Hill has come close and so I really cannot slate this the way that I thought I would.
In a way that is a recommendation.
