Black Hat

by Kayla Al-Shamma-Jones

She sees him out of the corner of her eye. A tall pale man with dark soulless eyes in a black bowler hat. Wherever college student Maeve Schrader goes, he's waiting for her, stalking her. And when she goes to sleep, she sees the horrific things that he wants to do to her in her nightmares. He wants to slice her open and eat her glistening insides, he wants to make her vomit an endless stream of blood, he wants to watch her skin crackle and burn under a rain of acid…

…he wants to punish her for being such a bad girl…

At first, she doesn't run. She thinks the man is just a side effect from her roommate's little orange study pills. She has to focus on her school work if she wants to avoid expulsion, after all, and her boyfriend and her mother would think she's crazy if she told them about the black hat man.

But with every breath the black hat man is getting closer.

Soon there will be no escape.

In this stunning prologue to the Raven Children series, Kayla Al-Shamma-Jones takes you into a dark world where the black-eyed kids are real and will do anything to get you on their side.

Genres: Horror

100 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 2012

About the author

Kayla Al-Shamma-Jones was a pretty weird kid, which is why she’s now a writer. Long ago she studied literature at the University of California at Davis and is now an author of dark, disturbing, and fantastical fiction. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her fabulous husband Orion and her two cats.

Reviews

[Roxanne Crouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Hat by Kayla Al-Shamma-Jones is a story about Maeve who experiences a mental break down. Her friend offers her a pill that is supposed to help her focus. Normally, Maeve is an honor roll student on the straight and narrow and would never consider taking drugs, but for some reason in college is isn’t doing so well. Against her better judgement and out of desperation, Maeve takes the pill. From then on strange things start to happen to her. She sees a strange man everywhere, she starts to become secretive and violent, and a constant paranoia follows her everywhere. Whether what’s happening to her is supernatural or all in her head is unknown in this first installment. You’ll have to read the second mini book to find out.

I enjoyed reading about this young girls descent into madness and thought, for the most part, it was written well. The story could use some more editing to tighten it up and catch the missing and extra words. As usual, I don’t like that this book does not have a conclusion of its own. You’ll have to read on to the next book which may also not conclude.

I like the characters, especially the quirky room-mate and the not so goody two shoes mom. I would have liked to see more development of these characters in the story, but for a short work, I thought the author did pretty good.

I’m interested to see where the story goes and wish the author would have combined the second part with this first part instead of cutting it in half. Why make your reader pay for half a story. I know authors think this is a great way to make more money from the story, but it angers the reader and they may not continue to the next part. They’ll just move on to an author who provides a whole story.

I liked the story and enjoyed reading it and would recommend trying it if you like dark tales of characters going insane. It was a refreshing departure from all the paranormal romance out there. I’d like to find out if it does take a paranormal direction especially after the ending, or if it takes a more realistic approach.

[Stephen Clynes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maeve is a 22 year old university student who has been given a pill by her room-mate Anne to help her study better. She takes just this one pill and suddenly things start to go wrong for her. Black Hat is a supernatural tale about a strange old man with big eyes who watches Maeve whilst wearing a black hat.

I suppose this novel is aimed at Young Adults as it highlights the dangers of taking drugs. It shows how just one pill of an unknown substance can wreck your life and maybe lose your sanity. Because it delves into the supernatural it loses any gritty urban realism. Black Hat is an easy read and provides a distraction. However, the entertainment value is POOR and this is not a fulfilling read. There is nothing special about this story and it did not provoke much interest for me.

It was hard to feel any empathy for Maeve as she has quite a spoilt little girl attitude.Her relationship with her parents is disrespectful and she can be rather rude to everyone. I did not find anything to like about this novel, so I can only vote it 2 stars.

Black Hat is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was written in 2012. This novel is Volume 1 of the Raven Children series. Volume 2 is called The Weeping Room and I shall not be bothered to download a copy.

[Keith Nixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maeve Schraeder is a top student, but she’s been struggling to make her grades recently. Her roommate offers her a study pill and it’s then she starts seeing a tall, bowler hat wearing man out of the corner of her eye. When she goes to sleep the Black Hat Man describes the unpleasant things he’s going to do to her.

This initially seemed to be a dark story of the perils of drugs and the mental anguish this can cause on yourself and others – demonstrated in the form of the Black Hat Man. Black Hat is listed in the horror genre. I didn’t find much, if anything, that could be described as more than mild until the final scenes. It’s comparatively tame throughout.

The writing is reasonable and there’s a decent internal / external interplay between Maeve and her subconscious. The characters also are reasonable, although I didn’t feel terribly engaged by any, as is the dialogue. On occasion, there were repeated words and some further editing would have been of benefit. For example when Maeve first encounters the Black Hat Man:

Maeve didn’t see his breath like she could see her breath in the cold morning air, and Maeve was pretty sure he wasn’t even breathing.

I struggled to stay engaged in Black Hat. In addition, I found the writing style sometimes dragged. Despite the relatively short length of the book scene descriptions were drawnout. This wasn’t helped by paragraphs that stretched over pages or sentences that ran and ran. Finally, at the conclusion Black Hat left a number of story lines hanging. This is a personal preference, I expect leaving some readers wanting more, others a little frustrated. I was in the latter camp.

**Originally reviewed for Books and Pals blog. May have received free review copy.**

[Kas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to think about my review before actually writing it...

The book was good but I gave it a 3 star rating because I needed MORE from it.

I needed to know more about this girl's family history with spirits. Why her family? What other experiences did people have? Why would a dark spirit choose her? Why now?

I needed more about who this Black Hat character was and what he wanted. Yeah, he wants to punish her...but why? Why is it important that he punish her now? Why so violently?

Why is she turning into something else? Is she taking his place? Is she infected somehow? With what?


I just had too many questions at the end of it to give it a higher rating. It felt like I'd missed huge chunks of the story.

[Lára · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my very fav books ever, and definitely the best horror story I´ve read in a very long time. It didn´t scare me, no, you have to be motivated to be scared, but it has all the elements of creepy. Ok, it probably is creepy, just not to me. To me is just beautiful.
It´s so amazing that I almost cannot believe it´s ... real.

Relatively short but fantastically and skillfully written. Has the beginning, middle and the end. No rushing or losing yourself in process of telling the story, no unimportant conversations between the characters ... just the amazing story. Original, unique. There was only the book and me, no other books, just Black Hat.

What I feel for this book is rare, at least in my case.

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

My Review: This appears to be more of a girls descent into madness due to drug influence more than a horror story. The man in the black hat seems to only live in her troubled mind. I find it kind of sad. The editing was awful really needs to be worked on. A book that only takes a hour and a half to read can’t really be called a book. All in all I felt that it was a waste of my time. Again I encourage authors to get and edit before you put your work out there. If you don’t think it’s worth the time and money why will the reader think it’s worth their time to read it not to mention their hard earned money to buy it. Two stars is all I can give this book.

[Mario Delgado · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oof. The sleeve credits an editor, but I think it could stand a second or third look. The main character seems rather inconsistent in her decision making given her upbringing and personality. Most of what happens in the story seems gratuitous, with no other real point but shock value. I do like the core idea in the story, but it felt like a first draft. Won't be reading the sequel.

[Ravven · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this recently and loved it, a real page turner. Suspenseful, spooky and very well written - an immersive, well-written book that I would highly recommend. I haven't read the sequel yet, but am looking forward to it after reading this.