Book Review - Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Title: Hex
Series: Robert Grim # 1
Author: Thomas Olde Heuvelt
 
Description: Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay ‘til death. Whoever settles, never leaves.
 
Welcome to Beek, the seemingly picturesque Dutch town haunted by the Wyler witch , a seventeenth century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children’s bed for nights on end. everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened or the consequences will be too terrible to bear.
 
The elders of Beek have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into dark, medieval practices of the distant past.
 
Review: Thomas Olde Heuvelt wrote the book back in 2013, but experienced a big breakthrough in America by releasing it in English.
 
The small town of Beek seems to outsiders a very quiet town, but appearance can be deceiving. Ever since the seventeenth century, a very special inhabitant has lived among the towns people and everything is done to hide her from outsiders. The Wyler witch, as this woman is called, has the entire village in her power. The people fear for their lives when they rebel against her, and to limit her powers, her eyes and mouth are sewn shut. All the villagers know that it is in everyone’s interest that these should never be opened. When one day a group of young people decide to make the witch known on the internet, it has great consequences for everyone who lives in Beek.
 
“Hex” is a mix of thriller, mystery and fantasy and contains elements from both the seventeenth and twenty-first century. This makes the book very original. The setting of a small town always works in a book like this. “Hex” is a genuinely creepy and scary book, that gave me a few sleepless nights.
 
The book is structured in two parts. In part one, we get to know the village and its inhabitant better. In the second part, the consequences of the actions of the teenage villagers become clear.  
 
The ending left me speechless, I loved the ending. It’s not a happy one, which fit this story perfectly. Stephen King has a love for this book and I totally understand why. It has some slower moments, which made it that I couldn’t give the book a perfect score, but it’s a book I would recommend to horror fans.
 
Rating: 4,5/ 5