“Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay until death. Whoever comes to stay, 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. Blind and silenced, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children’s beds for nights on end. So accustomed to her have the townsfolk become that they often forget she’s there. Or what a threat she poses. Because if the stitches are ever cut open, the story goes, the whole town will die.

The curse must not be allowed to spread. The elders of Black Spring have used high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break the strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiralling into a dark nightmare.”

This will be a short review as I have only read the first ten chapters of this book, which is available to all NetGalley members without the need for approval.  I have requested the full book but I’m still waiting on the publishers.  I guess I could have waited for the whole novel but I was rather keen on this one so decided to plough on in.

So I’m sure you’re thinking, this doesn’t look very much like a crime thriller novel; Emma’s usual fare.  And you’d be right.  This book falls into the horror genre which I like to dabble in every so often.

It’s creepy, you have a sense of foreboding throughout and Katherine gives me the heebie jeebies, but you would expect that seeing as she is a seventeenth century witch who appears in Black Spring homes without warning.  She also has her mouth and eyes sewn shut so not much of a looker either!

The book was originally written in Dutch and I believe that it has been snapped up by Warner Bros. who are adapting the story into a TV series (one I will not be watching as I’m sure it will be far too scary for me!).

So how do you rate only 10 chapters of a book?  I can see the story progressing well and the characters developing.  It has the potential to be terrifying and I think I will really enjoy this book once I get my hands on the entire thing.

Four out of five stars.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with the first ten chapters of Hex in exchange for an honest review.