Joe Hill Alert

Joe Hill shares more than a startling resemblance to his famous father, Stephen King; he also shares a talent for turning out some haunting tales of his own.

In 2005 Joe Hill published his first book, 20th Century Ghosts, a collection of short stories, some truly frightening ("Best New Horror"), others comical ("Pop Art") and touching ("20th Century Ghost"). The collection won the Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Fiction Collection, and the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story for "Best New Horror."

Heart-Shaped Box, Hill's first novel, was published in 2007. It's a modern ghost story about a washed-out rocker who bids on a dead man's haunted suit on eBay. It was awarded British Fantasy's Sydney J. Bounds Best Newcomer Award.

Hill teamed up with illustrator Gabriel Rodriguez to create the graphic novel series Locke & Key. Welcome to Lovecraft (2008) and Head Games (2009) are the first two books in the series, and Crown of Shadows is slated for a July 2010 publishing.

Fans are eagerly awaiting his second novel, Horns, due out today.

Horns summary: At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.

But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside.

Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge. . . . It's time the devil had his due. . . . (courtesy of William Morrow Publishers)

Links:
The Official Joe Hill Website