HEX Paperback – April 4, 2017

HEX is the international best-selling Literary Horror novel by author, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, who found overnight success with this debut tale that has no business being as fantastic as it is – yet here I am, singing its praises. So let me give you a quick (SPOILER-FREE) run down about what makes this a 5 star novel, and why the hype surrounding HEX isn’t just appropriate but also necessary, (if you haven’t read it as of 2018, the year I’m writing my review, then there is most definitely an absurd amount of hype over this release – and it’s been touted by critics & customers alike long before it was ever printed in English, so let that thought settle for a minute...).— I’m writing this review almost a year after I finished reading this book myself, and in case this isn’t dated/time-stamped, it’s currently March 2018 for what it’s worth. The world has changed more in the few years since HEX was first printed in its native language than any few years before, (*starting at the beginning of the 21st century obviously*). Why is this relevant? Because this novel IS about a cursed town that is, (liberal use of the term ‘haunted’), haunted...or more like, (well, no-spoilers, you’ll see in chapter 1!), yes that is a massive plot point of course.But imagine today’s society, your hometown, right now. The one you grew up in, and imagine it has to use every technological advantage, (security cameras, motion sensors, smart phones, the works), because technology has become powerful enough to be the best way to keep the town from being decimated by...YOU GUESSED IT...the HEX that was put on the land thanks to your dear old ancestors a couple hundred years ago. Basically, as the book’s online synopsis says, you cannot move out or leave this town if you are born into it. Imagine the logistics of keeping the government out of your entire neighborhood, as in, you are just a dot on a map that for some reason is never, ever, ever, really included or visited or known about by the outside world. Because what are you going to tell someone? “Yeah, I’d love to leave for college, but if I do, then the curse a 17th century witch put on my forefathers’ village and my hometown will allow her to use some dark magic spell that kills thousands of citizens of our community, so anyway, at least we have Netflix though.” See my point?— Now that was just one example of, “Well why can’t residents do this?” Let me tell you, there are DOZENS and dozens of far more interesting questions about how this society has been able to survive for hundreds of years, and how they cope with something so absurd that lurks RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, something that might just appear one night in your bedroom and watch you sleep and then leave while you’re at school later that day. That’s the normal these people live with. There’s an app on all their phones programmed by their own resident IT gurus, and it actually PINGS updates of wherever the witch is at any time – that is, if she’s not doing something weird in the woods and out of sight.— Sounds REALLY ridiculous, doesn’t it? I mean, let’s pretend for a second that something like this could be real and could have happened etc., just for a minute. It would still be far to crazy to believe no matter how much proof you were given, right? Your mind would just be unable to fathom the reality in front of it, and your subconscious would go into protection mode, and convince you it’s a farce, a hoax, a bad dream, anything to keep your wits about you. Well...ahem...to my fellow USA citizens who spent November 8th, 2016 making sure the country would be in a state of dysfunction and turmoil for four years, does ANY of what I just said about denying reality sound familiar? Because it should. If it doesn’t, then I see your head must still be in the sand.— Though it wasn’t intentional, and this author isn’t American/interested in American politics, (as far as I know), the success of this novel couldn’t have been more appropriately timed. As it was translated into English and listed under best-seller rankings a few months before and after the 2016 US Presidential Election. The social commentary in HEX is NOT what you would call, “preachy,” and there is no agenda or whatever. It’s a commentary that everyone, regardless of political or socioeconomic standing, would see wisdom in. Heuvelt never, ever uses the narrative for a chance to push personal opinions onto the reader – not about our political and societal issues, not about ones in Europe (as far as I know). THE BAD THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THE STORY ARE ALWAYS UNIVERSAL AND EXTREMELY HUMAN. The conflicts do not depend on different cultures in different parts of the world; instead, the issues that arise when the town begins to wonder if the HEX is even real and they’ve just been living like cowards all along, (for example), are not ones that could only happen in some parts of the world. If you have a village, a town, a large city, or the most powerful country on Earth, there will always be the unpredicatable actions, the human errors you cannot factor into a synthetic society, (See: WESTWORLD SEASON 1 if you don’t get my point).CONCLUSION: HEX tells the tale about a town that struggles with maintaining its superstitious routines in the post-modern age where technology has become a luxury and a curse in its own right. The author has written an ensemble collection of characters and townsfolk, from all ages and styles of life etc., who feel like actual people you could talk to. They are extremely well written, believable, and most importantly – each of them are flawed somehow, just like in real life.The novel is not actually scary, (I’m not saying oh it didn’t scare me I’m a tough guy!), no, I’m saying the premise by definition is about a Witch that is executed in the 1600’s and curses the villagers before dying, and since it’s FICTION, the story picks up in modern day, in the same town, only to discover that the Witch wasn’t bluffing on her HEX before she died. She has spent generations making the citizens fear her wrath, (without ever seeing any of it, let alone without seeing her face/eyes, as they are sewn shut, oh and she doesn’t touch you or anything – she’s kind of polite that way...). HEX unfurls brilliantly and is a book you will burn midnight oil to finish, so be warned it’s imposssible to put down. Also, without spoiling anything, just keep in mind that I said over and over again about how THESE CHARACTERS ARE VERY REAL, and they make mistakes like we do. As November 8th, 2016 reminds us Americans, mistakes haunt you and often they cannot ever be forgiven or fixed.Happy reading!

Overall, I did like Hex. It caught and kept my attention from the first page and I was eager to keep reading to find out what was going to happen. Right when I got done reading it, I wanted to hop on here and review it, giving it 5 stars, but didn't because I felt that it fell short. The realistic ending I didn’t really have a problem with. I've read books (Stephen King comes to mind) where the end isn't necessarily wrapped up nicely and everyone comes out happy.(SPOILERS)The whole point the author was trying to make in Hex was that when mass paranoia/confusion take hold, humans are capable of truly frightening things; which is true. What bothers me is that the author TELLS us that the witch, Katherine, wasn’t the true monster after all; it was the people of Black Spring who were the problem. Even though everyone in Black Spring had very understandable and reasonable fears of her.Katherine is the constant threat in the book, and even the reader becomes wary of her because she is so unpredictable in what she does. She is extremely powerful, has done truly awful things and is just SO bad that everyone in town KNOWS to stay away from her and how to avoid dying by her hands. Katherine is the reason no one can leave and why the river/creek runs red with blood; why the townspeople have thoughts of suicide when gone for too long or after hearing her whisper. The townspeople literally don’t know what Katherine will do next; will she kill them? Finally take her revenge and torture them? And when Katherine finally has a chance to actually use her powers against them? She doesn’t. The reader is told that she is just as shocked at what the people of Black Spring had done as Steve is. That the people who were being driven by paranoia and fear are truly the ones to blame. Even though Katherine has laid this inescapable curse on the town causing them to act like this. It didn’t set well with me, because the author hyped up the witch and SHOWED her doing horrible things and then tells us that it’s not her fault; it’s the people of Black Spring. It’s as if the author is TELLING us how to feel (contradictory to the evidence provided throughout the book) and not letting us come to our own conclusions.But the ending wasn’t the only problem I had with Hex. There were the constant comparisons of things to nipples and breasts (sometimes the mutilation of them, which I'll have a hard time forgetting); and I don't normally mind it, but it was constantly brought up throughout the book when it could've just been left out - aka comparing Katherine to being the nipple on the 'breast' cocoon of children towards the end. The overall imagery presented in the book was really strange at times.And the women didn't feel as fleshed out as the men did, they were just kind of there. And I honestly don't believe the author was being misogynous, but one instance that was really weird was when the citizens would have suicidal thoughts and specifically the women had visions of being raped by some wild creature and giving birth to the spawn; whereas the men only wanted to kill themselves.Steve also has this weird thing about loving his first son over his second; and even going as far as letting his wife and second son be burned alive in a church because, he reasons, it was out of love. But I have a hard time buying that the author tries to tell us that love can take away someone’s empathy and reasoning (aka becoming insane) and letting your family to die while you're the only one that makes it out alive.I felt like there were a lot of unresolved issues that I wanted explained, but I did enjoy reading it. And keeping in part with the realism, the reader doesn’t get to find out all the loose ends; which is fine. It was just weird parts of it that kind of took me out of the setting/mindset momentarily.

Very creepy, well written, dread with every turned page but really kept my attention, will definitely read more by this author

Oh My Gosh. I was gripped by this book, in the sense that it is well written. The characters and their lives are fully formed and, well rounded ... but - and it's a bloody big but: It's just not scary. Katherine Van Wyler is a bit of spectral nonsense. Ask yourself: Are you really going to be frightened by a 350 year old woman just because her eyes and mouth are sewn up? The book itself is a good story, just not a good horror story. Towards the end of the book, Van Wyler is used as a good allegory as to how humans can actually build up a sense of evil, all by themselves without the cause of that same evil being what they'd assumed it to be. I have to add that all the established authors who put their names to this book and, quotes about how scary the book is, should be ashamed of themselves. They're either taking healthy kickbacks or, they're smoking and/or drinking something that I'd really like to get my hands on.To summarise: As my title suggests - the Promise of a scary ending to end all scary endings, just isn't delivered in the case of Hex. The ending is akin to a car which ran out of fuel. Honestly, I'd recommend that you don't waste your time or money on Hex. What a disappointment.

As someone who lives under the delusion that they are a writer there’s one thing I hate above all else. Something that sets me sitting into the small hours contemplating my own inadequacies and wakes me when I finally sleep to unsettled thoughts. This thing is relentless and horrifying, marking each of my shortcomings in Day-Glo highlighters surrounded by mocking images. That thing is - I shudder to say - a novel as entertaining and thoroughly likable as Thomas Olde Heuvelt's HEX. My only salvation might be to find that this hated man might be secretly a person who kicks puppy’s and shouts at tiny babies. But I hold out little hope. HEX harkens back to the books I read when I was a teenager, when horror became a major force in mainstream literature, back when names like Stephen King where only for the initiated. In this far off time there was a spark of originality in horror literature that seems to have taken a back seat. Not that we have not had some fine books in recent years, not that it has been a desert of originality, but the spark that made these early writers so memorable has not fared well. It has not even fared so well for many of the writers we have known and loved since that time.Black Spring is a small mid-western American town, and like many small towns, the world over, it has its legends. Black Spring's is of The Black Rock Witch, a legend born in 1665 when Katherine Van Wyler - pronounced a witch - was punished by the town. Unlike most local legends the residents of Black Spring know there is more to the tale than most, they have evidence of this story. Evidence that walks the town, bound in chains with eyes and mouth stitched closed. Black Spring's truth is there for anyone to see, and so was born HEX, an organisation built around hiding the Black Rock Witch from outsiders, and maintaining an uneasy truce with the terrifying character. HEX holds, by necessity, a high level of social control over the town. All internet is screened and people are hired to check emails and letters for references to the witch. Across the town are hundreds of cameras, and people are encouraged to monitor the witch’s actions as she roams, seemingly without purpose, across the town. But such control is always tenuous, and there are always some who will push against it, those who write secret blogs and gather evidence, and still others who see the witch as something to eliminate, while others try to bid for her favours. The quiet town of Black Spring has its walking legend, a cadaverous horror bound in chains, but there are other horrors that lurk. Some horrors hidden by technology while others are old fashioned superstition, and sooner or later, one of them will bear its fangs and bite.On the surface HEX is about old fears and the ever present horror presented by those human desires we all know all too well, but underneath there is so much more going on. There is much said about the warring concepts of freedom and safety, the very real conflict that is a far more reaching that many might believe. HEX was created as a necessary evil, a barrier against what is believed to be a far greater evil, but what it eliminated was choice, and this begs the question whether the one is worth the other. In some ways HEX echoes a very different book in this respect, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, in its discussion on this topic. It could also be said that HEX is about how far a society can go to evade its rightful justice. Black Spring wrongs the woman, and Black Spring evades its rightful judgement and its tactics become more desperate as time moves on. After all, if you believe you are battling evil, pure evil, then are you not justified in terrible and unmerciful actions to hold that evil at bay? Hex is also about bigotry. Katherine was condemned by such bigotry and as she wandered the town in her horrific state, a state forced upon her by the punishment of the town, a state that was in no way her own doing. Her frightening countenance built a growing revulsion in the town’s residents, strengthening their bigotry against her, making them increasingly certain of their position against her. But what did they know? Did they know the towns tales about the woman were trues? Do they know they are secure in their belief that she had gotten no less than she deserved?Thomas Olde Heuvelt's HEX is not a single book, on its surface it is a book about old evils and an age-old battle against them, it is about our own desires and the mind of the mob. Underneath it is about far more, and is all too easy to place the small town filled with horror and sickness over the world in which we live. I see lessons HEX attempts to teach in modern politics and social issues that stretch the length and breadth of the world in which we live. One thing is true, regardless of which book you encounter. It will scare you, whether the fear is of Katherine or for her, the ideas floating around in HEX will stay with you, and you’ll be thinking of them until the release of the authors next book.

This is a gothic horror novel; very successful and much praised. The cover has a quote from the master himself, Stephen King [totally brilliant original] and indeed the structure and the narrative definitely owe a lot to him. He could have written it, actually. Its number 8793 in Amazon books this morning but No. 19 in Horror. Definitely not my usual thing.Way too long. Slow-burning. I like slow-burning, I write slow-burning myself but this is glacial. It’s about a witch who has damned the up-state New York community of Black Springs for 300 years and how the modern day inhabitants have adapted to survive and live reasonable but restricted lives. Then some teenagers decide to kick back and test the premise that the witch should be accommodated at all times, to devastating effect.For all that, I was never scared at any point. He has decided to pay more attention to his clever concept, ‘what would happen: what would the problems be?’ than trying to frighten us. It’s his prerogative of course but the reviews are very mixed with almost everyone commenting that they had high expectations that were not met.Me, I was just glad when the end came.

Black Spring seems like a normal American town, yet the residents bear a secret. Their town is cursed, haunted by the Black Rock Witch – a 17th century woman whose eyes and mouth have been sewn shut. Should the stitches ever be removed, the story goes, the whole town will die…The residents of Black Spring have become, if not comfortable with the Witch, at least accepting of her presence. Which is handy, as she enters homes at will, often standing for hours at a time, doing nothing. They aren’t able to leave Black Spring for any length of time – those born there have to stay until they die, and anyone who moves there can never leave. There are dire consequences for those who try to get away.In order to keep the Witch a secret – there have been bad experiences following the intrusion of outside agencies in the past – the town elders employ high-tech surveillance equipment to monitor both the Witch’s whereabouts as well as the residents in an attempt to keep the situation under control.Frustrated by the restrictions and unwilling to accept their fate, the teenagers of Black Spring begin to conduct experiments – pushing at the boundaries imposed on them, and unwittingly causing Black Spring to descend into a nightmare…What I loved about Hex was the way that you are slowly drawn in. Yes, there’s the Witch, but the residents of Black Spring are accepting of their fate, even if her presence can be a little unnerving. They make light of the situation, knowing that as long as they leave her alone, they’ll be OK. By the time things take a turn for the worse and the tale becomes gradually darker, you’re hooked, and you have to see it through to its conclusion.Encompassing a whole town as it does, there are a lot of characters presented here, and I did find it a little confusing at the outset to know who’s who, although you soon learn who the key players are. And the teens who begin to experiment were really interesting. Understandably reluctant to accept their fate, they approach their task scientifically rather than just being pesky troublemakers. Despite their good intentions, however, events spiral out of their control.As events escalate, Olde Heuvelt perfectly captures the vengeful nature of a town that is slowly descending into madness, and their sheep-like mentality as they look for someone to punish. I found it to be somewhat reminiscent of Ballard’s High Rise in the way that the madness takes hold of the community, albeit with a different catalyst.Hex is a wonderfully creepy novel that I didn’t find scary as such, but it’s one of those novels that makes you a little jumpy, making you look over your shoulder to make sure that you are alone. Hex will appeal to fans of (early) Stephen King, and anyone who likes a creepy, insidious horror story.Review originally posted on josbookblog.co.uk

Really enjoyed Hex. TOH is a revelation and I'm looking forward to reading his next book.Hex is different. That's quite difficult to pull off in a genre with only so many workable themes and so many authors swimming in the same pool, but TOH manages to create something refreshingly new.I won't go into the plot (that's your job), except to say that it's well paced and offers some surprises along the way, with some characters you root for and others' you most certainly don't. Definitely worth reading.