Joe Hill: Where should you start with his books?
Author photo © Lawrie Photography
Joe Hill is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Heart-Shaped Box, NOS4A2, The Fireman, and Horns. The book Strange Weather is a collection of novellas. Hill’s other works include the short fiction collections Full Throttle and 20th Century Ghosts, plus several graphic novels, including Basketful of Heads, Plunge, Dying is Easy, and The Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland (which continues the story of NOS4A2’s Charlie Manx).
He is also the Eisner Award-winning writer of the long-running comic book Locke & Key, with artistic maestro Gabriel Rodriguez. In 2011 Hill won the Eisner Award (Best Writer) for his work on the series. The six books in the Locke & Key saga formed the basis for a hit TV series on Netflix. A seventh volume, published in 2022, married the world of Locke & Key to the epic Sandman universe.
Much of Hill’s work has been adapted for film and TV, including Horns (Lionsgate), NOS4A2 (AMC), In the Tall Grass (Netflix), and The Black Phone (Blumhouse).
Hill talked to Nightmare Magazine about his earlier life as an aspiring writer:
“Sometimes people ask how was I able to keep the connection to my dad a secret for so long, and I had a powerful weapon on my side, and that weapon was failure. It was really easy to stay anonymous when I could barely get published…
“But, in retrospect, I look at that as the pen name having done its job. Because I was scared that if I wrote as Joseph King, when I turned in a novel, and it wasn’t that good, some publisher might decide to publish it anyway, because they saw a quick buck in the last name…
“So I went and tried to sell stuff as Joe Hill and saw a lot of rejections. But I think that was a case of the pen name doing its job: giving me a chance to make my failures in private, which is where your failures belong.”
More about Joe Hill online:
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Water Street Bookstore (Joe Hill signed books)
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Joe Hill: Where should you start with his books?
Joe Hill Novels
#1 Heart-Shaped Box
A pulse-pounding, terrifying rollercoaster ride of a supernatural thriller—a remarkable debut novel from a blazing talent that will keep readers spellbound.
The publication of Joe Hill’s beautifully textured, deliciously scary debut novel Heart-Shaped Box was greeted with the sort of overwhelming critical acclaim that is rare for a work of skin-crawling supernatural terror. It was cited as a Best Book of the Year by Atlanta magazine, the Tampa Tribune, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the Village Voice, to name but a few.
Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling Neil Gaiman of The Sandman, The Graveyard Book, and Anansi Boys fame calls Joe Hill’s story of a jaded rock star haunted by a ghost he purchased on the internet, “relentless, gripping, powerful.”
Open this Heart-Shaped Box from two-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Hill if you dare and see what all the well-deserved hoopla is about:
Aging death-metal rock legend Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals...a used hangman’s noose...a snuff film. But nothing he possesses is as unique or as dreadful as his latest purchase off the Internet: a one-of-a-kind curiosity that arrives at his door in a black heart-shaped box—a musty dead man’s suit still inhabited by the spirit of its late owner. And now everywhere Judas Coyne goes, the old man is there—watching, waiting, dangling a razor blade on a chain from his bony hand.
“I can say without a shadow of a doubt that my favorite part about the whole story is the fact that all characters are inscrutable. I really loved the book.” (Horror Bound)
#2 Horns
The inspiration for the 2013 dark fantasy mystery comedy horror movie starring Daniel Radcliffe as a young man falsely accused of killing his girlfriend, who uses his newly discovered powers to track the real murderers...
Merrin Williams is dead, slaughtered under inexplicable circumstances, leaving her beloved boyfriend Ignatius Perrish as the only suspect. On the first anniversary of Merrin’s murder, Ig spends the night drunk and doing awful things. When he wakes the next morning he has a thunderous hangover—and horns growing from his temples.
Ig possesses a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre gift he intends to use to find the monster who killed his one true love. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere.
Now it’s time for revenge—it’s time the devil had his due…
“Whenever I recommend Joe Hill to someone, the book I almost always start with is Horns. It has more space to get a feel for his style than his shorter works, has more relatable characters and a more accessible plot than his more convoluted stories, and has enough layers that even a shallow perusal that skips over the deeper religious and political criticisms still lends a thoughtful read. It has a little bit of everything that Hill does so well...” (Tor.com)
#3 NOS4A2
The spine-tingling, bone-chilling novel of supernatural suspense from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Fireman and Horns—now an AMC original series starring Zachary Quinto, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Ashleigh Cummings.
“A masterwork of horror.”—Time
Victoria McQueen has an uncanny knack for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. When she rides her bicycle over the rickety old covered bridge in the woods near her house, she always emerges in the places she needs to be.
Charles Talent Manx has a gift of his own. He likes to take children for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the vanity plate NOS4A2. In the Wraith, he and his innocent guests can slip out of the everyday world and onto hidden roads that lead to an astonishing playground of amusements he calls Christmasland. The journey across the highway of Charlie’s twisted imagination transforms his precious passengers, leaving them as terrifying and unstoppable as their benefactor.
Then comes the day when Vic goes looking for trouble...and finds her way to Charlie. That was a lifetime ago. Now, the only kid ever to escape Charlie’s evil is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx hasn’t stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. On the road again, he won’t slow down until he’s taken his revenge. He’s after something very special—something Vic can never replace.
As a life-and-death battle of wills builds, Vic McQueen prepares to destroy Charlie once and for all—or die trying…
“This is a horror story, but it’s also an adventure story, and it’s also an epic about a damaged girl who grew up to be a damaged woman, who rides out to do battle with the Devil for the soul of her child. But after finishing NOS4A2, I am sold; sure, Joe Hill undoubtedly had a huge advantage in being Stephen King’s son, but he can write. If you’re a King fan, I think you will like this book, but it’s good enough to possibly turn you into a Joe Hill fan as well. Certainly, I’m going to read some more by junior.” (Inverarity)
#4 The Fireman
A chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman.#
The fireman is coming. Stay cool.
No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton.
To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected.
To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.
Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore.
But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted—and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.
In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.
“Some people want to watch the world burn. Joe Hill just writes about it. At 750-plus pages, The Fireman is massive enough that you feel like you could put out an actual fire with it. Some wandering plot tangents aside, Hill keeps you invested in the characters’ survival up to the very last page and never lets up with the potential for doom at every turn. He’s built an impressive bibliography thus far…and the highly imaginative The Fireman is similarly deserving of a warm reception.” (USA Today)
Joe Hill Short Stories
#1 Full Throttle
Thirteen relentless tales of supernatural suspense, including “In the Tall Grass,” one of two stories cowritten with Stephen King and the basis for the terrifying feature film from Netflix.
A little door that opens to a world of fairy-tale wonders becomes the blood-drenched stomping ground for a gang of hunters in “Faun.” A grief-stricken librarian climbs behind the wheel of an antique Bookmobile to deliver fresh reads to the dead in “Late Returns.”
In “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain”—now an episode on Shudder TV’s Creepshow—two young friends stumble on the corpse of a plesiosaur at the water’s edge, a discovery that forces them to confront the inescapable truth of their own mortality. And tension shimmers in the sweltering heat of the Nevada desert as a faceless trucker finds himself caught in a sinister dance with a tribe of motorcycle outlaws in “Throttle,” cowritten with Stephen King.
Replete with shocking chillers, including two previously unpublished stories written expressly for this volume (“Mums” and “Late Returns”) and another appearing in print for the first time (“Dark Carousel”), Full Throttle is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche. Hypnotic and disquieting, it mines our tormented secrets, hidden vulnerabilities, and basest fears, and demonstrates this exceptional talent at his very best.
“I liken short story anthologies to a supermarket trip-you go in for what you want, see things you don’t like and often come away with something extra you didn’t know you liked in the first place. An odd analogy perhaps, but you get my drift I’m sure. In other words, in Full Throttle by Joe Hill, there were some stories I liked, some I didn’t like at all and a couple of nice surprises.” (Sublime Horror)
Joe Hill’s award-winning story collection, featuring “The Black Phone,” a major motion picture from Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions.
Imogene is young, beautiful—and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945…
Francis was human once, but now he's an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing…
John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead…
Nolan knows but can never tell what really happened in the summer of ’77, when his idiot savant younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds…
The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past…
The first collection from #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill, 20th Century Ghosts is an inventive and chilling compendium that established this award-winning, critically acclaimed author as “a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction” (Washington Post).
“Any true connoisseur of genre fiction will know that there are real treasures to be found in the short form. It isn’t necessary for a reader to be aware of Hill’s lineage to know that he is someone who understands and loves a good story, regardless of which genre it ‘belongs’ to. Of course, as with any collection of short stories, or sketch shows, or bag of Revels, there are some that will hit the spot and some that won’t. This will largely be a case of personal preference. There are no stinkers here that shouldn’t have been included, but you will certainly find yourself remembering some morsels more fondly than others.” (Den of Geek)
#3 Strange Weather
A collection of four chilling novels, ingeniously wrought gems of terror from the brilliantly imaginative Joe Hill.
“One of America’s finest horror writers” (Time magazine), Joe Hill has been hailed among legendary talents such as Peter Straub, Neil Gaiman, and Jonathan Lethem. In Strange Weather, this “compelling chronicler of human nature’s continual war between good and evil” (Providence Journal-Bulletin) who “pushes genre conventions to new extremes” (New York Times Book Review) deftly expose the darkness that lies just beneath the surface of everyday life.
“Snapshot” is the disturbing story of a Silicon Valley adolescent who finds himself threatened by a tattooed thug who possesses a Polaroid Instant Camera that erases memories, snap by snap.
A young man takes to the skies to experience his first parachute jump—and winds up a castaway on an impossibly solid cloud, a Prospero’s island of roiling vapor that seems animated by a mind of its own in “Aloft.”
On a seemingly ordinary day in Boulder, Colorado, the clouds open up in a downpour of nails—splinters of bright crystal that shred the skin of anyone not safely under cover. “Rain” explores this escalating apocalyptic event, as the deluge of nails spreads out across the country and around the world.
In “Loaded,” a mall security guard in a coastal Florida town courageously stops a mass shooting and becomes a hero to the modern gun rights movement. But under the glare of the spotlights, his story begins to unravel, taking his sanity with it. When an out-of-control summer blaze approaches the town, he will reach for the gun again and embark on one last day of reckoning.
Masterfully exploring classic literary themes through the prism of the supernatural, Strange Weather is a stellar collection from an artist who is “quite simply the best horror writer of our generation.” (Michael Kortya)
“I’ve been a fan of Joe Hill’s since his debut…so it was with great anticipation that I started reading Strange Weather. Even more exciting was the fact that this book is an anthology, collecting four short novels...” (Book Smugglers)
An astonishing collection of all-new tales by some of the most acclaimed writers at work today. Edited by Neil Gaiman (Sandman, The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys, Coraline) and award-winning author Al Sarrantonio, Stories presents never before published short works from a veritable Who’s Who of contemporary literature—breathtaking inventions from the likes of Lawrence Block, Roddy Doyle, Joanne Harris, Joe Hill, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Stewart O’Nan, Chuck Palahniuk, Carolyn Parkhurst, Jodi Picoult, Peter Straub…and, of course, the inimitable Neil Gaiman himself.
“The joy of fiction is the joy of the imagination…”
The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
Joe Hill boldly aligns theme and form in his disturbing tale of a man’s descent into evil…
Lawrence Block tells of a seasoned fisherman with a talent for catching a bite of another sort…
Carolyn Parkhurst adds a dark twist to sibling rivalry…
Joanne Harris weaves a tale of ancient gods in modern New York…
Jeffery Deaver introduces a dedicated psychologist whose mission in life is to save people…
A chilling punishment befitting an unspeakable crime is at the dark heart of Neil Gaiman’s novelette…
As it transforms your view of the world, this brilliant and visionary volume—sure to become a classic—will ignite a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional fiction.
“In the end, Stories: All New Tales, once you get past the generic title, is a worthwhile anthology. The level of quality one typically reserved for curated anthologies, the fact the stories are all originals adds to the intrigue. For any reader who complains that fiction today is too political and not story-driven, Stories delivers.” (Speculition)
#5 Living Dead: Zombie Anthology
“When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!”
From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today's most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction.
“First in The Living Dead horror anthology series with thirty-four tales about zombies in some way. Most are gruesome while a couple are sweet…yeah, who knew you could call a zombie tale sweet… Joe Hill’s “Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead” finds old lovers catching up when they meet as extras on George Romero’s set when he’s filming Night of the Living Dead. I can certainly empathize.” (KD Did It)
RESURRECTION! The hungry dead have risen. They shamble down the street. They hide in back yards, car lots, shopping malls. They devour neighbors, dogs and police officers. And they are here to stay. The real question is, what are you going to do about it? How will you survive?
HOW WILL THE WORLD CHANGE WHEN THE DEAD BEGIN TO RISE? Stoker-award-winning author Christopher Golden has assembled an original anthology of never-before-published zombie stories from an eclectic array of today's hottest writers. Inside there are stories about military might in the wake of an outbreak, survival in a wasted wasteland, the ardor of falling in love with a zombie, and a family outing at the circus. Here is a collection of new views on death and resurrection.
With stories from Joe Hill, John Connolly, Max Brooks, Kelley Armstrong, Tad Williams, David Wellington, David Liss, Aimee Bender, Jonathan Maberry, and many others, this is a wildly diverse and entertaining collection...the Last Word on the New Dead.
“This was an excellent collection. Long version? OK fine, we’ll give you that too. Typically, short-fiction is hard for us to read, not to mention review. Most of the time we begin a short-fiction anthology, and can’t even finish it. Of course, at that point, it isn’t worth writing a review about, and it wouldn’t be worth your time to read the review of the terrible collection. THE NEW DEAD, however, was quite different. While there were a few throw-away stories (like there are in every anthology), a majority of the stories were fantastic.
“The most surprising story? Joe Hill’s (if you didn’t know, Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son) story told in Twitter tweets. We initially figured it would just be too odd to be good, but it turned out to be surprisingly funny and simultaneously horrific. It follows a girl Tweeting from her family vacation, and their trip to The Circus of the Damned.” (Elitist Book Reviews)
Joe Hill Graphic Novels and Comic Books
The Eisner-nominated Locke & Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them, and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all!
“This is one of those books that you cannot read fast enough but at the same time you never want it to be over. Gabriel Rodriguez deserves special credit on this one for taking the images out of Hill’s head and displaying them on the page in such a striking way that I would sometimes linger over panels like a hungry dog eyeing a treat that’s just out of reach. I have since re-read this Joe Hill series and it holds up completely.” (Amanja Reads Too Much)
Joe Hill, the horror mastermind behind NOS4A2 and Locke & Key, arrives at DC Comics with the twisted tale of June Branch—trapped with four cunning criminals who have snatched her boyfriend for deranged reasons of their own. Now she must fight for her life with the help of an impossible 8th-century Viking axe that can pass through a man’s neck in a single swipe-and leave the severed head still conscious and capable of supernatural speech.
Each disembodied head has a malevolent story of its own to tell, and it isn’t long before June finds herself in a desperate struggle to hack through their lies and manipulations...racing to save the man she loves before time runs out. But is June Branch a woman fighting for her life-or a deranged axe murderer with a basketful of paranoid fantasies? The truth is even more horrifying than a basketful of heads…
“In this seven single-issue graphic novel, readers get to follow poor June Branch in her quest to find her boyfriend. This is one of the best books by Hill for readers who love a crazy blend of horror and supernatural fantasy.” (Ereads)
#3 Comics based on The Cape stories
Eric was like every other eight-year-old boy, until a tragic accident changed his life forever. The Cape explores the dark side of power, as the adult Eric–a confused and broken man–takes to the skies... and sets out to exact a terrible vengeance on everyone who ever disappointed him…
The Cape—Joe Hill’s acclaimed short story from his best-selling short-story collection 20th Century Ghosts adapted to comics! The Cape will walk you along the fence of childhood innocence, and then throw you face first into a brick wall. Explore your dark side in this tale by Hill and Jason Ciaramella, with art and two covers by Zach Howard. Collects all five issues of Joe Hill’s THE CAPE ONE SHOT and THE CAPE #1-4!
Joe Hill’s The Cape: Fallen—If power corrupts, then surely with great power comes even greater corruption. Writer Jason Ciaramella and artist Zach Howard uncover new folds in Hill’s cautionary anti-superhero tale with a story that takes place between the scenes of the original series. Eric’s already killed his ex-girlfriend and (spoiler alert) soon he’ll go after his mom and brother. But first he’ll go missing for three torturous days. What other atrocities will Eric commit? What violent secrets does the Cape still hide? There’s no telling, but the answers to those questions will further underline The Cape’s central theme—that no amount of power will make a bad person good.
Joe Hill’s The Cape: 1969—It’s 1969 and the war in Vietnam rages on. Captain Chase, a Medevac helicopter pilot for the US Army, is shot down over enemy territory. He and his crew are in a fight for their lives as they play a deadly game of cat and mouse with the Vietcong. We soon learn that machine guns and grenades aren't the only scary things hiding in the jungle. Find out what happens in this origin prequel to last year's Eisner Award-nominated hit, with story by Joe Hill and Jason Ciaramella, and art and colors by Nelson Daniel (Road Rage, The Cape). Explore your dark side.
“The Cape is an imaginative horror story that reminds readers that we can be anything we want when we grow up. Even a supervillain.” (Comics Authority)
Find the comics based on The Cape on Amazon
More from Monster Complex®
Further reading online
Interview: Joe Hill - Part 1 (Nightmare Magazine)
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill: A Review (Horror Bound)
Book Review: NOS4A2, by Joe Hill (Inverarity)
Joe Hill's imagination stokes 'The Fireman' (USA TODAY)
Full Throttle by Joe Hill review – less full throttle and more third gear (Sublime Horror)
20th Century Ghosts book review (Den of Geek)
Book Review: Strange Weather by Joe Hill (Book Smugglers)
Review of Stories: All New Tales ed. by Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio (Speculiction)
Book Review: John Joseph Adams’ Zombie Anthology The Living Dead (KD Did It)
Review: The New Dead (Elitist Book Reviews)
Joe Hill- Ranked Worst to Best (Amanja Reads Too Much)
Joe Hill is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. He is also an Eisner Award-winning writer of comic books. Much of Hill’s work has been adapted for film and TV.