Icy Heart, Empty Chest by Holly Lee is great at world building by creating a modern society of fairies, nymphs, elves, kelpies, and other magical creatures. It has a fascinating albeit gruesome plot and characters with potential. However, it is a slow paced book that gets repetitive very quickly.
In an alternate universe in which magical creatures live their daily modern lives, Cora is a barista, bounty hunter, smuggler, and art thief. Her client Finneas gives her a new assignment to retrieve a kelpie’s heart from the witch who stole it and give it to a potential buyer. While investigating Filla, the witch who took the heart, she learns that the heart belongs to Damien, a kelpie who is also her ex. He is alive but is growing weaker without his heart. Cora must choose between duty of following her assignment and a love that never really ended.
The strongest aspect of this book is the world building. It does not pull the old standard “Fairylands are stuck in a pastoral arcane Medieval like society" trope. If human society changes, there is no reason to assume that Fairy Worlds wouldn’t. They live in a society where magic and technology combine to create a world that is both fantastic and identifiable.
This is a world where nymphs and sprites live next door to each other in suburban homes. Where an elf runs the local cafe. Where a doctor might treat your illness or injuries or you might get a witch to do it. Lee clearly had a lot of fun with treating magical characters like people that we might see every day. They just happen to have powers to create storms, curse people, heal with their hands, or teleport from one place to another.
Some might have large ears, fur on their whole bodies, wings, sharp fangs, or look more animal than human. But they are just like you and me. They go to work or school, go shopping, run errands, hang out with friends, spend money, relax at home, and live mundane lives while having awesome powers and fascinating physical characteristics.
The book has a promising character and its plot is alright for the most part. Cora isn’t a smuggler simply for money. She steals because she loves and appreciates art. Her love of art is inherited from her late father. In a way, her career keeps her memory of him alive even if her pursuits aren't exactly legal.
Cora’s love for her father also is evident in her conflicts with Damien. In fact, their fathers had a violent confrontation. As children who are close to their parents will do, Cora and Damien defended their old men and ended their relationship in a battle of words. While Cora rejects what she lost, she recognizes that Damien doesn’t deserve to have his heart taken out and doesn’t want his death on her conscience. No matter how their relationship ended, she does not want to be the one to give him a death sentence.
The most serious drawback in the book is its pacing and it drags what would be an interesting plot. The heart assignment is well executed and there is genuine suspense in Cora’s search and retrieval of the heart. It could be a thrilling cat and mouse game that happens to have a living macguffin and lucky for Damien, a patient that is actually alive to take part in the search.
However the slowest moments occur during Cora and Damien’s reunions. There are several chapters devoted to them discussing their conflicts before they are resolved. A few are fine because this is a couple with a lot of serious baggage but those chapters repeat themselves. Cora and Damien spend a lot of talking in circles over the same topics and discussions without coming to any resolution or clarity.
The pacing drags down what could be an interesting book with a fascinating premise and characters and makes it tedious and even boring. Their conversations could have been shorter, or came to the main points quicker. Also instead of talking about their issues and telling each other how they feel, they could show each other. What is overly verbose could have more action showing the two coming closer together emotionally on this heart stopping, pun not intended adventure.
The Hat Man by Greg Marchand
A supernatural creature that has gained popular culture relevance is The Hat Man. a mysterious tall figure with no facial features and dressed in a black suit, coat, and fedora appears from out of the shadows and stands over an unwilling victim usually in their bedrooms, in an abandoned street, or the woods, somewhere they are alone. It doesn’t touch them or talk to them mostly. It just stands there as a frightening silent presence. The Hat Man is most commonly associated with sleep paralysis as humans have largely reported seeing it in their bedrooms and over their beds before approaching REM sleep. There are urban legends of Benadryl users taking large quantities of the antihistamine to purposely encounter the figure.
The Hat Men inspired the look of various characters like Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, The Babadook, and Creepypasta’s Slenderman. He has also appeared in the horror films, Shadow People and The Shadow Man, the documentaries The Nightmare and The Hat Man: Cases of Pure Evil, the games LSD: Dream Emulator and Deep Sleep, the Jason Pargin novel, John Dies At the End, and The Twilight Zone episode, “The Shadow Man.” The Twilight Zone episode in particular builds on the legend by depicting The Shadow Man as attacking people except “the one under whose bed (they) lay.” Unfortunately, the young protagonist finds himself the prey of a Shadow Man from under someone else’s bed!
The most recent portrayal of this enigmatic eerie and otherworldly figure can be found in Greg Marchand’s horror novel, The Hat Man. Similar to The Twilight Zone episode, it shows a Hat Man who isn't just terrifying because of its mere presence. It isn’t above using violence to make a point.
This version of the Hat Man appears after a couple excavate trees for their gum. Instead of the expected sap from a slash pine, blood emerges and the two stumble upon an abandoned grave. They then see a terrifying figure dressed in a fedora who attacks the couple. Once unleashed, The Hat Man attacks various characters in violent ways. Two brothers searching for the monster are separated then murdered with great efficiency by The Hat Man. It falls to Sadie Burrows and Colton Garrett, who lose loved ones to the Hat Man, to investigate the mystery of this strange specter, its origins, and hopefully how to stop it.
This book embellishes The Hat Man mythos by giving it more agency, character traits, and even a backstory. Instead of being a silent detached observer, it is an aggressive creature of action and rage. He uses his sharp claws, ice cold death breath, and superhuman strength to overpower then kill its victims. The action removes the more ominous ambiguous presence from the legend but makes sense from a storytelling point of view in this context.
In some ways, Marchand combines the behavior of The Hat Man with more malevolent spirits like the dybbuk, which possesses and torments the living and the revenant which returns from the dead to inflict harm or terror.
The behavior of the Hat Man becomes more understandable once we learn about its backstory before its death. It was once a person that was involved in horrible things and died graphically and violently. It is trying to seek the vengeance and justice in death that was denied in life. It’s not a particularly understandable or sympathetic character in the past or present, but knowing that it was once human gives it more of a relatable edge.
There are many people filled with such hatred in their hearts that they make life miserable for those around them. Their words, actions, and very presence stirs negative emotions within people and they almost delight in that persona. They could fly into violent rages or play cold sociopathic mind games, but no matter their means they bring cruelty and inspire fear, despair, dependance, self-blame, guilt, submission, anger, fury, trauma, depression, anxiety, complacency, and apathy. Now picture a person like that with coming back to life after their death and having supernatural abilities. It’s very easy to see why The Hat Man leaves such an impression on those he encounters.
This presence is also augmented by the personal suffering inflicted by the human characters. Sadie is coming off of an abusive relationship in which her ex hurt her dog, Buddy, who would later be killed by The Hat Man. A vet assistant and animal lover, Sadie’s strongest emotional core was her dog and the Hat Man destroys it.
Colton’s family is extremely dysfunctional, particularly his troubled, addicted younger brother, Trevor, whom Colton has always taken a paternal role towards. He also greatly admires his older steadier brother, Bill, who is also the Sheriff. Both are murdered by The Hat Man. In killing them, The Hat Man also deprives Colton of his strongest emotional touchstones.
It’s not enough for The Hat Man to kill someone physically, he destroys them emotionally by removing those they love the most and leaving them completely vulnerable and helpless when he comes after them.
That is the atmosphere that surrounds the book. It is a cruel world obsessed with death and violence that is reflected by an even crueler afterworld where the violence doesn’t end. Instead it increases. One of the more disturbing passages occurs when Sadie, Colton, and their friends hunt for The Hat Man during a Mardi Gras parade and stare befuddled and shaken at a float from The Hat Man Krewe, a float that not only honors the terrifying spirit that ruined their lives, but turns him into an attraction. It is one thing to become victimized by a disturbing person or presence but it is another thing to see that same presence glamorized into a figure of fun, sexuality, or worse admiration.
The Hat Man book reveals a lot about a supernatural creature but it also reveals a lot more about the humans who talk about it.
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