The Hush: A Novel

This is a sequel to THE LAST CHILD, revisiting young Johnny Merrimon ten years after he confronted the terrifying abduction of his sister. Now in his twenties, Johnny lives a hermit existence in The Hush, several square miles of forest and swamp he has inherited in North Carolina. A billionaire neighbor bids to buy The Hush to extend his hunting reserve. Johnny doesn’t want to sell. He has dreams and visions centering on the 1850s when his ancestor and namesake fell foul of a female shaman with malevolent healing powers.A descendant of the shaman responds to a summons to return to the county and cross paths with Johnny Merrimon. And there’s Something lurking in the swamp (the author calls it “Something”), a dark presence that for more than a century has been savagely culling unwelcome intruders.Like Stephen King, John Hurt elevates the Gothic thriller into the realm of literary fiction. THE HUSH brings some echoes of THE SHINING, where it's the location itself that threatens the mental and physical health of trespassers. The story builds to a shattering climax as Merrimons past and present reach a "confluence" on a hill in the center of the swamp. A couple of loose ends suggest that this may be the middle segment of a projected trilogy.

John Hart is an excellent North Carolina author. I can highly recommend all of his books. Many of them are page turners and will keep you guessing right till the end.

The Hush is a great book, beautifully written, atmospheric, chilling and thrilling. Some of the reviews take serious issue with its supernatural elements but for me they work well as a device for exploring how history, and particularly historical trauma, echoes through the ages and still shape lives today. The powerful pagan elements that Hart drew upon in The Last Child here find expression in the land itself, raw, elemental, dark but also in some measure exhilarating in their harshness.The Hush is not straightforwardly a crime novel. It has bigger things to explore and say. It's obviously not to everyone's tastes but what is.

If you are unfamiliar with John Hart do yourself a big favour start reading. A stunning book. It is riviting, gripping,shocking,sad & creepy. Description that will enthrall you. I've read all of his books and find him to be a perceptive writer. Loved this one.

A gripping novel, where the supernatural almost becomes normality and 'Hush Arbor' has a dark disturbing, rather bloody, character of its own. Perhaps not for the faint hearted, but a rewarding, satisfying read all the same. As always John Hart delivers the goods!

Another absolute stunner from John Hart, intricate and intriguing with characters you get to know and a story you can't wait to unravel

Mr Hart writes really interesting characters, who are fully formed and vivid. However, in The Hush, the plot is almost entirely dependent on the supernatural, which just left me cold.

Hush takes us back to into the lives of Johnny Merrimon and Jack Cross 10 years after we first met them in The Last Child as they face a journey of survival against resentment, jealousy, legal woes, the wilderness, and the unsettled skeletons and secrets of the past.The writing is gloomy and exceptional descriptive. The characters are steadfast, scarred, and lonely. And the plot, which seems to be heading towards a legal thriller in the first half of the novel quickly veers into a story of tortured spirits, dark magic, and supernatural phenomenon.I have to say that die-hard fans of John Hart may be a little disappointed in this latest outing which doesn’t leave you on the edge-of-your-seat or delve into the complex nature of the human psyche as we’ve come to associate with his novels. There’s no question that Hart is an incredibly evocative writer, and although The Hush really didn’t work for me if you can approach it with an open mind and enjoy stories steeped in magical realism you may just love it.