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Husk
AN AMAZON #1 BESTSELLING HORROR TITLE.ONE NIGHTMARE ENDS…Serial killer Kale Kane has finally died, having survived five years in a coma after a shootout with police. But is his reign of terror truly over? When he died, Kane took the reasons for his atrocities with him, along with the answer to a question police never got to did he work alone?…AND A NEW HORROR BEGINS.Mallory Wiess is a typical teenage girl… or so it seems. When she moves to rural Minnesota with her father and younger brother, she quickly discovers her new home won’t be as boring as she’d feared. Who is the dark figure watching her from the house across the street? What is the shape hanging in the shadows of the old barn behind the neighborhood? And why has someone begun digging up graves at the ancient cemetery in the forest? Soon Mallory will learn the truth. For she has attracted the attention of a killer, a ruthless predator who believes only her death will finish the work Kale Kane began, and unleash an evil that has faded into legend. In the end, one night will decide if the dead will rise.
338 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 14, 2011
18 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
Matt Hults
14 books8 followersA native Floridian, Belea Keeney's short stories have been published by WordKnot, Boundoff, Florida Horror: Dark Tales from the Sunshine State, The Beast Within, and other venues."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 25, 2012
I read this as part of our Horror Readers group at Shelfari.
I previously read a short story collection by the same author which I enjoyed very much.
This is the story of a dead serial killer who is somehow killing again. What makes this story different and interesting is the abilities of this killer.
The book begins with the death of the above mentioned serial-murderer. Then it fast forwards a few years where we find out that the killer actually didn't really die until just a few weeks prior. From there the story branches out with a nice selection of characters that were developed well, for the most part. A lot of them were teenagers and their characters were ok, but my favorites were Frank, the police detective forced to retire because his beliefs wandered out of the realm of reality; Melissa, the modern day detective who slowly comes around to believe what Frank is telling her and Tim, a teenaged boy who morphs into a man during the course of this novel.
The story was very fast paced and whipped right by and before I knew it, it was over. All in all, I enjoyed this read and I look forward to reading more by Mr. Hults.
I previously read a short story collection by the same author which I enjoyed very much.
This is the story of a dead serial killer who is somehow killing again. What makes this story different and interesting is the abilities of this killer.
The book begins with the death of the above mentioned serial-murderer. Then it fast forwards a few years where we find out that the killer actually didn't really die until just a few weeks prior. From there the story branches out with a nice selection of characters that were developed well, for the most part. A lot of them were teenagers and their characters were ok, but my favorites were Frank, the police detective forced to retire because his beliefs wandered out of the realm of reality; Melissa, the modern day detective who slowly comes around to believe what Frank is telling her and Tim, a teenaged boy who morphs into a man during the course of this novel.
The story was very fast paced and whipped right by and before I knew it, it was over. All in all, I enjoyed this read and I look forward to reading more by Mr. Hults.
January 25, 2012
Matt Hults, Husk (Books of the Dead, 2011)
“A sharp pain manifested within her wound...”
Given how much I adored Forrest Armstrong's The Deadheart Shelters last year (it made my 25 Best Reads of the year list), I figured I'd start checking those same avenues for more buzz books. Didn't take long for another to crop up: Husk, the first novel from Matt Hults. And to an extent, the buzz is warranted; Hults has turned in a solid supernatural-slasher thriller that doesn't do all that much to break the conventions of the genre, but works within them quite well. Were we still in the golden age of the mass-market pulp-paperback horror novel (mid-seventies to late eighties), I can absolutely see this book getting Hults a contract with one of my much-beloved cheaper publishers of genre horror, someone like Playboy, PaperJacks, or Pinnacle. Husk is, easily, on a quality level with the books published by those presses thirty or forty years ago in terms of plotting, pacing, characterization, etc.
“Becky, gagged, felt her stomach seizure.”
The other really good thing about such an arrangement is that it would have hooked Matt Hults up with an editor/proofreader who could have done something about the times this book's writing goes as horribly off the rails as it does. Granted, it's only the odd sentence that does, but those sentences are truly odd indeed. The two most obvious are already here (the other two that really jumped out at me will follow, though I'll be qualifying both of them, and one will only be an excerpt, as quoting the entire sentence would be a major spoiler). If you don't have a problem with them, or if you can get around them given that we're talking about four sentences in a 338-page novel, then I can recommend this one pretty enthusiastically for fans of genre horror. On the other hand, if you took Latin in high school (do high schools even offer Latin any more? I'm too old for my own good...) or college, you might come across “Further emphasizing the pure wickedness the hecatomb reeked of, he found a wide pool of blood the killer had gathered in a shallow pit at the center of the room.” Now, I'm going to admit right up front that one's probably not Matt Hults' fault, at least not entirely (there was an AD&D monster, I think in the Fiend Folio called a Hecatomb), but I do not think, in the words of Inigo Montoya, it means what you think it means. (A hecatomb is a sacrifice of one hundred cattle.) Similarly, Hults talks about “extirpated remains” in one sentence later on. Which I will admit, totally sounds cool (and gross). Until you look up “extirpated” and find out it means “local extinction” (as in a species dying off within a specific area), as opposed to anything having to do with, say, liquefied, rotting body parts.
So, yeah, the writing could use some touching up. (We'll not even mention the dangling preposition in the hecatomb sentence.) But for good, solid action and a hefty side of gore, Matt Hults brings it. *** ½
“A sharp pain manifested within her wound...”
Given how much I adored Forrest Armstrong's The Deadheart Shelters last year (it made my 25 Best Reads of the year list), I figured I'd start checking those same avenues for more buzz books. Didn't take long for another to crop up: Husk, the first novel from Matt Hults. And to an extent, the buzz is warranted; Hults has turned in a solid supernatural-slasher thriller that doesn't do all that much to break the conventions of the genre, but works within them quite well. Were we still in the golden age of the mass-market pulp-paperback horror novel (mid-seventies to late eighties), I can absolutely see this book getting Hults a contract with one of my much-beloved cheaper publishers of genre horror, someone like Playboy, PaperJacks, or Pinnacle. Husk is, easily, on a quality level with the books published by those presses thirty or forty years ago in terms of plotting, pacing, characterization, etc.
“Becky, gagged, felt her stomach seizure.”
The other really good thing about such an arrangement is that it would have hooked Matt Hults up with an editor/proofreader who could have done something about the times this book's writing goes as horribly off the rails as it does. Granted, it's only the odd sentence that does, but those sentences are truly odd indeed. The two most obvious are already here (the other two that really jumped out at me will follow, though I'll be qualifying both of them, and one will only be an excerpt, as quoting the entire sentence would be a major spoiler). If you don't have a problem with them, or if you can get around them given that we're talking about four sentences in a 338-page novel, then I can recommend this one pretty enthusiastically for fans of genre horror. On the other hand, if you took Latin in high school (do high schools even offer Latin any more? I'm too old for my own good...) or college, you might come across “Further emphasizing the pure wickedness the hecatomb reeked of, he found a wide pool of blood the killer had gathered in a shallow pit at the center of the room.” Now, I'm going to admit right up front that one's probably not Matt Hults' fault, at least not entirely (there was an AD&D monster, I think in the Fiend Folio called a Hecatomb), but I do not think, in the words of Inigo Montoya, it means what you think it means. (A hecatomb is a sacrifice of one hundred cattle.) Similarly, Hults talks about “extirpated remains” in one sentence later on. Which I will admit, totally sounds cool (and gross). Until you look up “extirpated” and find out it means “local extinction” (as in a species dying off within a specific area), as opposed to anything having to do with, say, liquefied, rotting body parts.
So, yeah, the writing could use some touching up. (We'll not even mention the dangling preposition in the hecatomb sentence.) But for good, solid action and a hefty side of gore, Matt Hults brings it. *** ½
October 16, 2011
How So many people can give this such a high rating is beyond me. We have a monster that has unlimited powers but can't seen to take out a couple of teenagers and a crippled old man. We have people just carrying on their normal lives after such a harrowing event and deaths of so many people. The author uses equipment he clearly doesn't understand, I.e. You can't pump a semi-automatic shotgun! The story might have been good but their were too many WTF inconsistencies.
January 2, 2014
If this book had managed to retain its horror-inducing creepiness past the halfway mark, I would have had to rate it higher. The first half of the book was well paced and thoroughly creepy (as in, don't read it alone, at night, kind of creepy). But it lost that creepiness about halfway through in favor of spatter-movie blood & guts. The premise was unique, I liked the characters, the writing was good (with the exception of obvious copy-editing issues throughout the second half) and the horror of the first half of the book was excellent.
January 2, 2016
Husk reminds me of a time in my life before bills, before work, before any substantive responsibility in my life (though it certainly didn't feel like it at the time). A time when I was in middle and high school and I could go rent five VHS B-horror movies for 5 bucks, sit down with a root beer, and enjoy a horror movie that was perhaps not high art, but they were entertaining.
What does this have to do with Husk? It's a throwback to those movies (in book form). To Pumpkinhead, and Night of the Demons, or Friday the 13th. It's a book that eschews a lot of the trends of modern horror and goes back to good, old-fashioned fun horror. It may not be a total masterpiece, but you're having too much fun to really care.
Husk tells the story of a group of people in a small town in Minnesota – a father recently reunited with his kids, a burnt out and scarred ex-policeman, and a love sick teen to name a few – who become slowly aware of a horrible evil in their midst. The evil is after one of their own for it's own purposes – purposes that you can imagine are not very pleasant.
The writing is straightforward in many ways, but not by any means simplistic. It has a delicate balance of simplicity, metaphor, and style that makes it easy to read. The prose is neither overwrought nor coy and Hults throws a curveball into the text at appropriate points to keep the reader engaged. The characters are good. He avoids the pitfall of making them unrealistic or unlikable, but they are are suitably tarnished in their own ways to be believable. The ex-policeman Frank was a favorite of mine as a man determined to fight the evil, but painfully aware of how careful he has to be to avoid being labeled a psychotic. The teen characters are pretty realistically written, though not quite to the levels of Ryan C. Thomas' Hissers which nailed the teen voice pretty freakin' convincingly.
On the downside, the monster's powers (while intriguing) feel a bit pat in terms of its all encompassing ability to triumph over the people trying to escape it. There's a couple of times where the credulity of its skills felt a bit stretched even by horror standards. The only other real complaint I can level at it is that some of the arguing between Frank and his detective counterpart wears a bit thin at times as she tries to rationalize away the supernatural events occurring around her. I know it has to be done (hell it's a staple of horror that authority figures not believe the threat facing them), but it went on a little longer than I would have liked to see.
Bottom line, though, these are small complaints. Hults comes close to putting a Friday night late show horror movie to the page in a way that I've only seen done in books like Bryan Dunn's Moon Rocks before. Well worth a read.
http://apocalypseyarns.blogspot.com/
What does this have to do with Husk? It's a throwback to those movies (in book form). To Pumpkinhead, and Night of the Demons, or Friday the 13th. It's a book that eschews a lot of the trends of modern horror and goes back to good, old-fashioned fun horror. It may not be a total masterpiece, but you're having too much fun to really care.
Husk tells the story of a group of people in a small town in Minnesota – a father recently reunited with his kids, a burnt out and scarred ex-policeman, and a love sick teen to name a few – who become slowly aware of a horrible evil in their midst. The evil is after one of their own for it's own purposes – purposes that you can imagine are not very pleasant.
The writing is straightforward in many ways, but not by any means simplistic. It has a delicate balance of simplicity, metaphor, and style that makes it easy to read. The prose is neither overwrought nor coy and Hults throws a curveball into the text at appropriate points to keep the reader engaged. The characters are good. He avoids the pitfall of making them unrealistic or unlikable, but they are are suitably tarnished in their own ways to be believable. The ex-policeman Frank was a favorite of mine as a man determined to fight the evil, but painfully aware of how careful he has to be to avoid being labeled a psychotic. The teen characters are pretty realistically written, though not quite to the levels of Ryan C. Thomas' Hissers which nailed the teen voice pretty freakin' convincingly.
On the downside, the monster's powers (while intriguing) feel a bit pat in terms of its all encompassing ability to triumph over the people trying to escape it. There's a couple of times where the credulity of its skills felt a bit stretched even by horror standards. The only other real complaint I can level at it is that some of the arguing between Frank and his detective counterpart wears a bit thin at times as she tries to rationalize away the supernatural events occurring around her. I know it has to be done (hell it's a staple of horror that authority figures not believe the threat facing them), but it went on a little longer than I would have liked to see.
Bottom line, though, these are small complaints. Hults comes close to putting a Friday night late show horror movie to the page in a way that I've only seen done in books like Bryan Dunn's Moon Rocks before. Well worth a read.
http://apocalypseyarns.blogspot.com/
August 1, 2016
Parts of me want to rate this book much higher and parts of me want to give it a 1. That is how I ending up with a 3. Right smack dab in the middle.
This book was particularly easy to read and hard to put down once I had accepted that it was not going to be the book I hoped. That epiphany was actually a turn for the better. Hults started off having me believe this was just going to be a serial killer/crime novel with gorey details. Halfway in it was clear to me that was anything but. The first half was almost painful to read because of how comically bad it was in relation to my initial expectations of the book. I mean, a gas station explodes and the killer walks away unharmed. Walking around in broad daylight killing people. Sloppy behavior for an expectedly brilliant killer. Once the twist is revealed and I could read this book as a supernatural thriller/horror I enjoyed it. Rock solid B horror movie potential. Too bad for the star rating.... I'm not that into B horror movies.
This book was particularly easy to read and hard to put down once I had accepted that it was not going to be the book I hoped. That epiphany was actually a turn for the better. Hults started off having me believe this was just going to be a serial killer/crime novel with gorey details. Halfway in it was clear to me that was anything but. The first half was almost painful to read because of how comically bad it was in relation to my initial expectations of the book. I mean, a gas station explodes and the killer walks away unharmed. Walking around in broad daylight killing people. Sloppy behavior for an expectedly brilliant killer. Once the twist is revealed and I could read this book as a supernatural thriller/horror I enjoyed it. Rock solid B horror movie potential. Too bad for the star rating.... I'm not that into B horror movies.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 26, 2014
I have to give Matt Hults credit - I usually don't have a problem eating while reading horror novels, but I found that salsa was a poor choice while reading this one. Grossing me out with written words is not an easy feat, but it happened repeatedly, and being the twisted girl that I am, I enjoyed every minute of it.
There were a few issues that should have been caught in the editing process, and occasionally the prose would meander in a manner that left me confused for a minute, but I really enjoyed Husk. It's a really good horror novel, and it's great for a first horror novel.
There were a few issues that should have been caught in the editing process, and occasionally the prose would meander in a manner that left me confused for a minute, but I really enjoyed Husk. It's a really good horror novel, and it's great for a first horror novel.
May 7, 2012
This book started out as terrifying. I don't know if I was just out of practice with the genre or what, but the first few chapters were awesome. And it continued with some promise. But then... The ending began. And I couldn't finish the book, because the end was just so silly. So...I gave it a shot, but I just couldn't fall in love with this book like others have. And the shoddy copy editing was almost impossible to ignore as well. It was almost as if the editor decided to care less toward the end along with the plot. Oh well. For what it was, it was certainly entertaining.
December 16, 2012
Este livro é ideal para todos os fãs de slasher movies. Mas filmes de terror dos clássicos, com um vilão ao nível do Freddy Kruger ou do Jason do "Sexta-Feira 13". O livro tem todos os ingredientes que se espera encontrar numa obra do género - vítimas adolescentes, detectives que não acreditam no sobrenatural; assassinos imparáveis e mortes cheias de sangue. Sinceramente, este e o Snow voltaram a fazer com que acreditasse que ainda há esperança para os livros de terror ;)
March 8, 2014
The first half of this book is intense! Frightfully intense. Heart pounding, nail-biting intensity. HOWEVER.... As you get into the second half, it's like a bad scene from Bedknobs & Broomsticks. You almost expect to see Angela Lansbury behind the scenes chanting her spell to bring inanimate objects to life. The part where Tim's jacket strangles one guy.... Really? It all went downhill for me with Tim's jacket. I mostly skimmed the rest, mainly to get a conclusion. Very disappointing to experience such a major build-up, only to have the rug jerked out from under me.
July 20, 2012
I read this on my Kindle. What is it about book-editing and Kindles? Just about every chapter needed work. Did I get a pre-release copy? Something straight out of the author's word processor?
Aside from the editing, this was a fun read. I was not overwhelmed or captured like when I read King's "The Shining", but the light-hearted escape was welcome. I would recommend this new author to someone else seeking horror.
Aside from the editing, this was a fun read. I was not overwhelmed or captured like when I read King's "The Shining", but the light-hearted escape was welcome. I would recommend this new author to someone else seeking horror.
August 14, 2013
It's hard to believe that Husk is Matt Hults first novel. Tightly plotted, well written and genuinely horrific, this novel will grab you from the first paragraph and won't let you go until the final page. The characters are believable and human (the humans at least) and you will genuinely care what happens to them. Husk is the best horror novel I have read in a long time- I can't recommend it enough.
February 21, 2014
Not too shabby.
I really liked this book for its gory depictions and the story was pretty good too. Whoever his editor is though, needs to be fired. Lots of typos and weird wording. Things like "he jump to the ground" rather than "he jumped to the ground." Just little things like that irritated me. But besides that I really liked it!
I really liked this book for its gory depictions and the story was pretty good too. Whoever his editor is though, needs to be fired. Lots of typos and weird wording. Things like "he jump to the ground" rather than "he jumped to the ground." Just little things like that irritated me. But besides that I really liked it!
November 18, 2012
This book was scary so reading it at night wasn't something I was going to do. There's lots of action & gore to keep a person entertained with all the lights on. Since the setting is 'real world', it adds to the suspense, making it a great read.
June 15, 2016
Kind of a ridiculous book so far. Way over the top with violence that goes beyond the suspension of belief expected when reading other supernatural books. I give it a "bleh" but am determined to finish it anyway.
December 17, 2012
I loved this book! It's well written and entertaining, with lots of action and genre-appropriate gore. It grabbed me at the very beginning, and never let go. I'll definitely be watching for future work from this author.
March 16, 2013
This was a great book. It kept my heart racing in anticipation of what would happen next. A book hasn't creeped me out like that in a long time. If you are looking for a gorey tale with lots of suspense, check this out. Looking forward to reading more by Matt Hults.
May 16, 2015
The reviews is read had me expecting more from this adequate horror novel. I might have enjoyed it more had it gotten to its conclusion more fleetly. I'd still be interested in more books by this author.
January 12, 2015
An interesting story mostly told by the author. Still I kept with it to see how things went along. A little more tightening up and edit would polish this nicely but like I said the interesting story made it a good read.
September 9, 2015
Definitely a horrifying tale...
I was a bit surprised by the Egyptian part of the story, but it was definitely d a page turner. Had to look away once you start. I love the fact that at the end it's not open ended, it's briefly glances at the future. Good book all around.
I was a bit surprised by the Egyptian part of the story, but it was definitely d a page turner. Had to look away once you start. I love the fact that at the end it's not open ended, it's briefly glances at the future. Good book all around.
March 31, 2011
I found 'Husk' to be a very interesting read. It was a book that I didn't want to put down. I loved the story and the characters.
October 23, 2011
Good story...end was a little ridiculous..
March 26, 2012
His first novel... Very good... Suspenseful at times -- and definitely a cool plot... I recommend... Looking forward to further books by him...
Currently reading
July 8, 2012pretty creepy with a good story line.
October 9, 2012
It read like Buffy the Vampire Slayer for adults IMO. Really over the top in places but overall a fun read.
May 8, 2013
Thought this was a fair to middling book. I feel bad that I can't really say why I didn't like it more. It did have some pretty neat scenes here and there.
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January 29, 2014Nice!!!
This guy has a talented brain. I hated when the book ended. I think the book would have been just fine without the use of the 'DVD' but all in all I liked this book a lot.
This guy has a talented brain. I hated when the book ended. I think the book would have been just fine without the use of the 'DVD' but all in all I liked this book a lot.
September 13, 2015
Loved it
Very scary easy read! It starts off pretty fast and then keeps going at a pretty fast pace. I highly recommend
Very scary easy read! It starts off pretty fast and then keeps going at a pretty fast pace. I highly recommend
August 16, 2023
A good read...could have used some editing and proofing...well done, considering it's the author's first book.
June 16, 2012
Weird ending!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews