Killer Christmas

by John Hall

It’s nearly Christmas, but 17-year-old Hope Novak can’t get into the Christmas spirit. Over the summer she broke up with Shane Culver, the hottest guy at Oakmont High…but Shane won’t let her go. It seems every place Hope goes, Shane turns up, telling her menacingly that they were meant to be together, that he loves her, and that if he can’t have her, no one will…

Hope’s friends can’t understand why she’d dump the guy every girl in school wants. He’s handsome, popular…and determined. From the day Hope broke up with him he’s been sending her cards, flowers, boxes of chocolate. Leaving messages late at night on her answering machine. How romantic, Hopes friends say.

But Hope knows about Shane’s dark side. The side that wildly confronts her when he sees her talking to other guys. The side that lied to Hope about another girlfriend. Shane won’t take no for an answer, and Hope is afraid of what he might do if he doesn’t get her back.

Then the terror begins. Hope finds a note in her mailbox from someone who says he’s watching her. She sees someone following her in the dark. Someone calls her and says bad girls must be punished, that sometimes bad girls die… A masked figure with an ax chases her through the woods.

Now Hope wishes she’d never had anything to do with Shane.

All she wants for Christmas is to get through it alive.

A terrifying page-turner by master of young-adult suspense John Hall.

Genres: Audiobook, Christmas, Mystery, Young Adult, Thriller

146 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 18, 2017

About the author

As a teenager, John Hall devoured a diet of classic horror movies such as Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Some of his more recent favorite horror movies are the Scream and Saw franchises. When he began reading adult horror, his instant favorites were Stephen King, John Saul and Dean Koontz. Most recently he's a fan of dark suspense authors such as Gillian Flynn, Ruth Ware, Shari Lapena, B.A. Paris, A.J. Finn, Liv Constantine and Lisa Jackson. John Hall's novels will appeal to fans of Karen McManus, E. Lockhart, Natasha Preston, Lois Duncan, Joan Lowery Nixon, R. L. Stine and Caroline Cooney. John grew up in Brooklyn, with a younger brother and over twenty cousins (yes, it's true!) but now lives in New York City. Readers can email him at johnhallauthor@gmail.com.

Reviews

[Mikala · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly juvenile 👎

Ugh cheating storyline 😑 also If you have to ask your best friend to "keep an eye" on your boyfriend for you while you're away, then I'm pretty sure he doesn't deserve to be your boyfriend / He's not a good boyfriend.

God this dude Shane is LAUGHABLE

Ok, I'm starting to get excited. Because I think that this is turning into a creepy babysitting slasher, and those always get me!!! (Nope this lasted for only about 10 minutes max lol).

ALLLL this friend drama around some mediocre over controlling teenage boy. 🙄 I swear if these girls don't rally around eachother by the end and it turns out to be Diendre...😤

The characters are very immature 😒

Shane being a total stalker is getting really tedious / repetitive ugh.

Blechhhh the body count is rising. I appreciate the action and not being afraid to kill your characters.

Gosh this climax scene is so over the top 😬😅 it's reading like a cheesy b movie at this point.

Overall this was so average. If you love slashers this could be a fun read but it's not my horror genre of choice so it just fell on deaf ears for me.

AND WOW...that epilouge chapter was truly the cherry on top of the OUTRAGEOUSLY ridiculous cake LOL

[CheyAnn Robin ·ᴥ· · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welp the plot twist got me. 🫢🫢

[Sherri Bryant · Rating 1 out of 5]

Complete rubbish. The one ⭐️ is a nod to the narrator. Don’t waste your time.

[Paula Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Hall wrote a bunch of decent if unremarkable YA thrillers in the 90s - Homecoming Queen for the almighty Point imprint, and Dear Sister and The Cheerleaders for another publisher. Killer Christmas has a copyright date of 2017, but I am pretty certain this was written 20 years ago, ready to be published, probably right around the time the 90s teen horror craze practically died overnight, and unfortunately had to be stuck back in the bottom drawer of the desk.

The plot has Hope Novak fending off the attentions of ex-boyfriend Shane Culver, who she unknowingly started dating while he was still dating her best friend, Deirdre. Deirdre now hates her. Shane simply won't take no for an answer, displaying behaviour that would easily earn him a restraining order, but Hope simply shrugs her shoulders in frustration and keeps telling him to bugger off. But then Hope starts receiving threats, with Santa telling her she's a naughty girl for stealing boyfriends, and she's going to be punished...

This was fun, because it was set around the Christmas period, with the author at least trying to make the book feel as if it was set at Christmas (a lot of authors can't even get that bit right.) Also fun was the fact it indeed felt just like reading a 90s YA horror tale and its associated silliness and outdatedness. The girls talk about Shane all the time, and have bitchy attitudes towards girls they don't like. The mentions of iPods and DVDs were already out-of-date by 2017, and there's not an iPhone in sight. There's no way a girl today wouldn't get a restraining order pronto against Shane.

However, there's a fun sequence where Hope is chased by a Santa carrying an axe, and it builds to a terrifically cheesily entertaining climax, one of the better ones you'll see in this genre. Some quick light horror entertainment for Christmas Day, before all the relatives arrive and you're too full to move!

[Courtney Gruenholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho ho ho!!

Last Christmas I purchased this for my Kindle as it is the only way you can read it. I decided to finally get around to it since I thought that maybe it might not be very good...

I was proven wrong because Killer Christmas is a throwback to those Point Horrors of the 1990s even if by the late 1990s, this sort of genre was letting out its last breath.

This invokes the late 1990s because I see mentions of e-mail but the phones still use answering machines and there is talk that not everyone has caller ID which probably picked up after Scream. I also note that none of the teens mentions a cell phone so it was kind of refreshing for a book published in 2017.

We get a cast of characters that start dwindling down and that narrows down the killer but at least it is toward the end of the book.

Not trying to jump ahead but the ending serves up a fantastic swerve!

Hope Novak is just trying to have a Happy Holiday this Christmas season despite her funds being low to get presents but she would be more festive if her ex-boyfriend would just leave her alone.

Shane Culver is Mr. Popularity at school but Hope knows what a jerky jock he can be and that he is a liar and a creep. Hope has to explain to her newest friend Paige just why she can't stand Shane and it involves her ex best friend Deirdre too...

All Hope had to do was keep an eye out on Shane during the summer while Deirdre was away being a camp counselor and make sure that Sabrina Dawson didn't try to get her man-eating hooks into her boyfriend. They had been besties since forever but Hope couldn't help but fall for Shane's charm herself...

A few kisses and they were dating yet Hope knew it was wrong but Shane said that he and Deirdre were over... that was a lie. Deirdre found out and now she hates Hope's guts but Shane keeps trying to get back together with Hope even though Sabrina is still throwing herself at Shane.

Too bad that Shane isn't on the more heartbroken scale of denial but the obsessive, won't take no for an answer type of disillusionment. Hope can't even talk to any other guy without Shane getting hot under the collar and man-handling her, claiming that they will be getting back together by Christmas.

What a coincidence when Hope starts getting threatening letters in the mail, horrifying packages in the mail and calls on her private line promising that terrible things will happen to Hope because she has been a naughty girl this year...

Hope knows that it has to be Shane, going off the deep end, but soon finds herself wondering if Deirdre could be so angry with her or that Sabrina just might be so crazed to get Shane to finally notice her...that either one could have just...snapped?

As Christmas draws closer, Hope is no longer in the holiday spirit once the threats turn into cold-blooded murder...

Seasons Greetings!!

[Kari · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a quick YA msytery. It was extremely predictable and I called the killer right away. It wasn't anything specials or riveting. The characters kind of annoyed me honestly. I wouldn't really recommend this one.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow this was messy but I couldn’t stop listening. 2/10 don’t recommend.

[Kara Benoit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone in this book is awful

[Jocelyn Rubinetti · Rating 1 out of 5]

The concept of a holiday themed Scream was better than the reality

[Richard K. Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is so much fun in this Christmas season 'high school killer' thriller!

It is coming up on Christmas and this year Hope Novak knows that a Bad Santa is watching her.....has she been good or naughty? Shane Culver thinks she has been a bad girl and deserves to DIE!
I had never heard of this author or his works, and though this came out almost 7 years ago....I really had fun with this.

Hope and Shane broke up this last Summer and with Shane being the hottest jock and the most desired guy in school; why would Hope break up with him? When she comes home from school one day she gets a note from someone who says 'I am watching you.......' she thinks nothing of it. But once the weird things start to go crazy around her at school, and people she is friends with start to go missing.....she thinks someone is out to teach her a lesson, and try to get her to stay away from seeing or dating anyone! With the Christmas Bazaar and the winter break coming up, one of Hopes friends is discovered murdered; strangled to death with christmas lights.....and Hope just knows that Shane is trying to kill her NEXT!

There were no surprises in this book, but the fast and break neck speed of suspense was a lot of fun. High school was never this suspenseful! I only took 4 hours to listen to the audiobook, and with how good the narration was on it, I would recommend this to anyone who likes suspense, without all that body gore! Is there a sequel? There should be!

3.5 Ho Ho Ho's!

[Anissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

🎧 I picked this book up because I was looking for any in every audiobook I could get through Libby that were under both “christmas” and “horror” tags trying to get in the Christmas spirit but in a genre I like. That said I did not look at any details of this book.

Upon looking further into this book, seeing that it’s a young adult book I think it was great for the audience it’s intended for. I was a bit confused on what era this book was written in a because there were a few things that seemed a bit outdated while also talking about some current things.

There is a slight twist, although it could be relatively predicted, even if the reason isn’t.

I would probably recommend this book to an eighth grader and up.

[Scott Delgado · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to bump this to a 3, but I just couldn't justify it. The book is at least short, but in that short amount of time, you just get repeat over and over and over again. You start to wonder what the Hell the parents of these kids are up to and why the police department is so inept. It wants to be "Scream" in that it's a whodunit, and the author throws suspicion on one character just to then absolve them of any guilt. I was able to figure out at least who was doing the murders, but the motive was a slight surprise. But honestly, I wanted everyone to die. I didn't like any of the character.

[Tammy Conatser · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost didn't read this given that Christmas is over, and i thought it would be a corny juvenile story, but I ended up really loving it. I did have the person in mind on who was doing it, but it was not concrete as I did suspect someone else as well. It did not lessen the story any and I would to have a sequel

[Sara Sneed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was meh. Not very original. Over the top killer, who went from well masked under controlled, to full maniac in a blink of an eye. Weird motive too. This could have been set at any point in the year. I feel it was chosen for Christmas, to pull in readers looking for holiday inspired reads. Christmas was totally incidental.

[Elizabeth Hayhoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I borrowed this audiobook from the library. The narration was not great. This is a YA novel, it’s short. I guessed the killer right away. The characters are not interesting and now I wonder why I even read the book.

[Erica Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic whodunit?

This was a good book for a teen or adult looking to get into the slasher genre. Murder without a lot of blood and gore.

A nice pallette cleanser for me as I typically read horror that is far more gory. So if you're into chill and vanilla horror, I say give it a try!

[Lynnsey Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

That was aggressive.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this as audio in one day
Very good narration & kept me on the toes.
I did call the killer very early on but it leads you to believe anyone could have done it.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super easy read. Predictable but not all the deaths that happen.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked the other John Hall I read as part of Point Horror, and I loved this. So grisly! What a fun twist.

[Jessica Bortolus · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Christy Smejkal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main character is kind of annoying and it was predictable.

[Ginny Warren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would’ve loved reading this in middle or high school. It was just way too juvenile for me at this point.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very YA-I didnt hate it though, it was entertaining.

[Lisa Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cheesy teen thriller. FMC totally naive. Just a fun little read for kids.

[Aubrey Braddock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick, fun one. Called the ending pretty fast, still enjoyable.

[Jenny Authier · Rating 1 out of 5]

😂😂

[Priscilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! Set at Christmas in involves young friends shopping for gifts, scary phone calls, creepy notes and murder. So many descriptive scenes packed into this book. Such a fun read, full of teen drama and Christmas spirit. I was wondering when or if anyone was going to die, all I can say is wow, such a creative use of Christmas props!
I didn't know who the bad guy was, or should I say I thought I did and then changed my mind 3 times. Lots of possibilities.
A entertaining fast read, kept me turning the pages. Perfect to read in Nov like I did. I am feeling fully festive and looking to read more by this author.

[Caroline Clutterbuck Kapulkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to the audible audiobook ver of this, narrated by Kate Clarke. 5 stars voice performance, the VA really made a so-so mystery into a fun holiday slasher! A lot of the mystery is campy and over-the-top, with candy cane murder weapons, bitter high school rivals, and suspicion around every corner. I didn't particularly like any of the characters, but it was a fun listen.

[Bria Nycole · Rating 1 out of 5]

🎧 Yikes.