Haunted October -NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.

Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.

So my husband recommended NOS4A2 to me after reading it and really enjoying it. I am always on the lookout for a book that will grab my attention, hold it and scare or disturb me in the process.

That is exactly what this novel does. It twists your mind and throws you into the uncanny valley where things like Christmas and children’s picture books become a dark scary place full of children with needle teeth and moons that talk.

This book was basically about a guy who kidnaps children, takes them to a place called Christmasland where he turns them into monsters and siphons off their life force to keep himself alive. However, it was really so much more than that as well.


The heroine of the novel is not the traditional kind, beautiful, sure…But she screws up a lot; drugs, alcohol, craziness. The author writes her in a way that no matter how she behaves you still root for Vic, you still like her. She is certainly different from the Mary Sues I am used to reading about. Her love interest Lou, is also not the normal kind, he’s an obese dork madly in love with his hot tattooed baby mama. The characters were so refreshing I couldn’t help but smile, laugh and cry with them, I worried alongside them and didn’t want the book to end.


The villains were the kind I enjoy as well, ones you can almost feel sorry for and a whisper inside you doesn’t want them to get caught.

Charlie Manx, the kidnapper, is a creepy old dude who is basically a psychic vampire and drives a Rolls Royce Wraith that is magical and sinister all on its own. He loves children and wants to take them away from parents he thinks will screw them up. He loves Christmas and is a disturbing Santa-like figure. He drives the thin line between pervert, kind old gentlemen and madman.


Bing is Charlie’s helper. A weird guy who never quite grew up. He helps Charlie by taking care of the moms of the kids. He wears a gas mask which is scary for me already, can we say “Are you my mummy?” He takes the moms, rapes and kills them. At times he acts like a child and Charlie keeps him under his thumb with promises of taking him to Christmasland.


This book starts out with action and it never stops. The chapters are written in a way I have never read before and really helped with the storytelling. The writing is just damn good and the plot is excellent.


Not gonna lie, there is some gore, disturbing content and foul language. All things I enjoyed and thought enhanced the novel, but others might not appreciate. I actually do not have anything to complain about.


With that said…On to the next!

Haunted October- Recommended Reads

Halloween Reading Month! 

This week's recommended reads

Need something creepy to get you in the Halloween mood?

Try these gems!

The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

1867. Eliza Caine arrives in Norfolk to take up her position as governess at Gaudlin Hall on a dark and chilling night. As she makes her way across the station platform, a pair of invisible hands push her from behind into the path of an approaching train. She is only saved by the vigilance of a passing doctor.

When she finally arrives, shaken, at the hall she is greeted by the two children in her care, Isabella and Eustace. There are no parents, no adults at all, and no one to represent her mysterious employer. The children offer no explanation. Later that night in her room, a second terrifying experience further reinforces the sense that something is very wrong.

From the moment she rises the following morning, her every step seems dogged by a malign presence which lives within Gaudlin’s walls. Eliza realizes that if she and the children are to survive its violent attentions, she must first uncover the hall’s long-buried secrets and confront the demons of its past

On a split of land cut off by the Gulf, three Victorian summer houses stand against the encroaching sand. Two of the houses at Beldame are still used. The third house, filling with sand, is empty...except for the vicious horror which is shaping nightmares from the nothingness that hangs in the dank, fetid air.

The McCrays and Savages, two fine Mobile families allied by marriage, have been coming to Beldame for years. This summer, with a terrible funeral behind them and a messy divorce coming up, even Luker McCray and little India down from New York are looking forward to being alone at Beldame.

But they won't be alone. For something there, something they don't like to think about, is thinking about them...and about all the ways to make them die