Amazon.com: Horns: A Novel (9780061147951): Joe Hill: Books
Horns: A Novel and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more

Buy New

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Buy Used
Used - Acceptable See details
$4.06 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
Kindle Edition
 
   
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Horns: A Novel
 
 
Start reading Horns: A Novel on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Horns: A Novel [Hardcover]

Joe Hill (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (262 customer reviews)

List Price: $25.99
Price: $17.23 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $8.76 (34%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 9 left in stock--order soon.
Want it delivered Monday, February 27? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition --  
Hardcover, Bargain Price $9.85  
Hardcover, February 16, 2010 $17.23  
Paperback, Bargain Price $6.00  
Audible Audio Edition, Unabridged $23.95 or Free with Audible 30-day free trial

Book Description

February 16, 2010

Joe Hill has been hailed as "a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction" (Washington Post); "a new master in the field of suspense" (James Rollins); "one of the most confident and assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy to emerge in recent years (Publishers Weekly); a writer who "builds character invitingly and plants an otherworldly surprise around every corner" (New York Times).

This gifted and brilliantly imaginative author catapulted to bestsellerdom with the chilling Heart-Shaped Box and cemented his reputation with the prizewinning volume of short fiction 20th Century Ghosts. At last, the New York Times bestselling author returns with a relentless supernatural thriller that runs like Hell on wheels. . . .

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.

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. . . .

Check Out Related Media



Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with 20th Century Ghosts $16.55

Horns: A Novel + 20th Century Ghosts
  • This item: Horns: A Novel

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • 20th Century Ghosts

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2010: Best known for his terrifying (really) debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, and his famous dad, Joe Hill continues to make a name for himself with Horns, a dark, funny exploration of love, grief, and the nature of good and evil. Ignatius William Perrish wakes up bleary and confused after a night of drinking and "doing terrible things" to find he has grown horns. In addition to being horribly unsightly, these inflamed protuberances give Ig an equally ugly power--if he thinks hard enough, he can make people admit things (intimate, embarrassing, I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that details). This bizarre affliction is of particular use to Ig, who is still grieving over the murder of his childhood sweetheart (a grisly act the entire town, including his family, believes he committed). Horns is a wickedly fun read, and reveals Hill's uncanny knack for creating alluring characters and a riveting plot. Ig's attempts to track down the killer result in hilariously inappropriate admissions from the community, heartbreaking confessions from his own family, and of course, one hell of a showdown. --Daphne Durham

From Bookmarks Magazine

Critics across the board felt possessed by Horns and strongly recommended it to horror fans and general readers alike. But the devil is in the details, and it seemed as if each reviewer felt obligated to find a minor flaw in the book. Some disliked the structure of its plot, others felt the tone to be uneven, and a few were overwhelmed by the book's many devil references and puns. All of those critics, though, were ultimately persuaded by Hill's sympathetic characters, his combination of the best of horror with psychological fiction, and his consistent originality.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 370 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow (February 16, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0061147958
  • ISBN-13: 978-0061147951
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (262 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The author of the critically acclaimed Heart-Shaped Box and 20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill is a two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, and a past recipient of the Ray Bradbury Fellowship. His stories have appeared in a variety of journals and Year's Best collections. He calls New England home.

 

Customer Reviews

262 Reviews
5 star:
 (135)
4 star:
 (75)
3 star:
 (30)
2 star:
 (17)
1 star:
 (5)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (262 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 94 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars just a great funny touching wild book, January 8, 2010
This review is from: Horns: A Novel (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Ig Perrish wakes up one morning with a hell of a hangover and discovers that he has grown horns on his head. He has become a (the?) devil, has powers and thus opportunities (but also downsides) he didn't have before, and within a short time, he knows just what he wants to do with them - take revenge for a hideous wrong. How best to do it?

That's simple enough, an amusing premise for something of a supernatural thriller, but Joe Hill does more than just exploit that - a lot more.

First of all, the book is just crazy funny. Hill has a great ear for dialogue, his scenes are often completely absurd and yet somehow believeable, and the situations are, after all, ridiculous on their face, but he makes it all work.

Second, his plotting (for such a strange book) is tight. The heart of the book is something of a murder mystery, and Hill uses flashbacks from various characters to good effect, putting the pieces of the puzzle in place in a pretty clever way.

Third, there is something more than just a wild ride for his characters here - there is actually a touching love story, and the revelations behind various motivations and actions are really well done. The last 50 pages or so, and especially the last 20, are in fact just downright intimate - and all without seeming mawkish or losing the flavor of the very strange ending.

It's a crime story, a horror story, a love story - frankly, it's a lot like something Steven King would have written 20 years ago. It's excellent.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Sympathy for the Devil, March 10, 2010
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Horns: A Novel (Hardcover)
"Ignatius Martin Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things." So begins Joe Hill's excellent sophomore novel, Horns. As the straightforward title suggests, the novel has a simple, high-concept premise. After the aforementioned night of doing terrible things, Ig Perrish wakes up the next morning with a pair of horns growing out of his head. His reaction is typical enough. After the immediate shock of it, he concludes he's hallucinating--and either way, he'd better see a doctor.

It is with these initial interactions, with his girlfriend, the folks in the doctor's office, and most disturbingly with his family, that Ig makes several unpleasant discoveries. No one reacts to the horns. Rather, they're compelled to share their deepest, darkest, sickest secrets. Trust me; you don't want to hear the most vile thoughts of a stranger on the street--much less those of your grandma!

Just when this grotesque show-and-tell is beginning to feel a bit old, Hill moves on and dives into the meat of his story, Ig's story. One year prior, Ig's childhood sweetheart, the love of his life, was violently murdered. The crime was never solved, and Ig is widely believed to be the murderer. Very widely believed, he is to learn. Hill's novel ultimately spans several literary genres. It's a supernatural thriller, a murder mystery, a coming of age story, and a dark comedy all rolled into one. And the novel succeeds quite well on all counts.

As the story drew to its conclusion, the thing that was very noticeable to me was how elegantly constructed the novel was. It was like a perfect puzzle, with different clues and unanswered questions salted throughout. But by the end, everything came together in a way that wasn't so much neat as inevitable. It was elegant. And it was emotionally satisfying. And it was darn entertaining, which is just about the highest praise I can offer.

P.S.: For those of you who realize there is a coded message on the end papers of the novel, but are too, uh, busy to decipher the message, I'm putting the solution in the comments section of my review.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


73 of 95 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars I Wanted to Love Horns, but I did not, January 4, 2010
This review is from: Horns: A Novel (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I've been waiting for the release of Joe Hill's second book ever since I finished his debut masterpiece "Heart Shaped Box." Sadly, Hill hits a bit of a sophmore slump here and Horns fails to live up to its potential.

To start, Joe Hill is a fabulous writer. His prose is some of the best in horror today and his use of imaging and metaphors are that of a writer with far more books under his belt. Furthermore, his characters are welll drawn and multifaceted. Where Hill falls in Horns is on the plot itself.

Horns styles itself a horror novel, but mostly it is an almost Jodi Picoult look at love and tragedy and its effects on three main characters. Ig makes for a good main character and the first 70 pages which deal with his new horns and their ability to make people tell the horrible truth about their sins is fascinating. Ig is a suspected murderer and he finds out the true feelings of his accquaintances and relatives. Sadly, after a roaring first fifth of the book, the real murderer is revealed and we are plunged into a long flashback taking Ig and the other characters from teenagers to adulthood with a few present day chapters sprinkled in.

The horns chapters are good, the flashback chapters are good, but they never seem to find a happy connection with each other. The ending also feels rushed and like the final gasp of a writer who just wanted to get the book out of his life as soon as he could.

Horns isn't a poor book by any means, there are many plasures to be had with it. However, it does not rival Heart Shaped Box in any way. We can only hope book number three will be a return to glory.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(56)
(47)
(32)
(24)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
Wow, Paperback of Horns Cheaper Than Kindle Edition? 0 Mar 8, 2011
joe hill 6 May 27, 2010
Will this be out on Kindle? 1 Mar 21, 2010
Anyone know what this book is about? 4 Dec 6, 2009
See all 4 discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject