3,5* star rounded to 4
I think it's a matter of expectations as the book is well written and the author is a good storyteller.
I expect some serious horror but I found the book spooky but the creepy factor wasn't very high.
The story is gripping but I think that the horror side was a bit too light and the growing tension didn't reach a climax.
The character are well thought even if Ben seemed a bit too childish to me.
I had fun and I'm sure a lot of people will love it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

'We would be known only as part of stories that people told in front of the fire on a  autumn night, stories about a horseman without a head who rode through the darkness, stories about two men and the woman they both desired, but only one of them loved her.'

Sometimes with a Christina Henry book, I find her retellings quite forced but this was absolutely perfect. It's been on my wishlist for a very long time and I'm so grateful to @netgalley and @titanbooks for the opportunity to review it. I was so excited about it that I actually read it before Washington Irving's original work which has been on my shelf a while. Needless to say, I'm now obsessed with all things Sleepy Hollow. What a perfect book to read in October, it has the ideal mix of belonging after a lifetime of not quite fitting in, of love for a family fraught with grief and of a deep seated evil in an enchanted village. I highly doubt this will be topped as 2021's spookiest read.

I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review. Many thanks to Titan Books and NetGalley for the opportunity.

Here in the North of England, the nights are drawing in early and I am looking for books to put me in the Halloween mood. I am kicking off the season of spooks with Christina Henry’s Horseman. This book is set twenty years after events in Washington Irving’s famous short story and involves some of the same characters. You do not need to have read the original story but you might feel you want to.

The main character is Ben, the fourteen year old grandchild of Brom Bones Van Brunt and Katrina Van Tassel, who feature in the original tale. The book opens with Ben seeing the corpse of a murdered boy, mutilated in a particularly grisly manner. As more children die, Ben becomes aware of a supernatural presence and hears the hoofbeats of the horseman. With the threat drawing closer and closer to home, Ben needs to find the truth of events twenty years earlier surrounding the headless horseman and the disappearance of teacher, Ichabod Crane.

Ben’s transgender nature is one of the strongest themes running through the book. Born female and named Bente, Ben just doesn’t feel like a girl. The book explores, through Ben’s viewpoint what it was like to be a transgender at that time, the acceptance/rejection that came with it. The subject is sensitively handled and is given as a desire on Ben’s part to be a strong grandson to Bones and not be forced into a role that doesn’t fit. It does add an interesting and relatable dimension to the character.

The village of Sleepy Hollow is almost a character in itself. It is a small village where magic can happen, and it seems that what the villagers believe, becomes reality. An insular and superstitious group of people, they tell ghost tales round the fire and constantly feed the supernatural energy of the area, but it is the human evil lurking in the hearts of these people that is the real threat. As the book ends, Sleepy Hollow is opening up to the world and we can see the difference this makes.

There are other themes within the book, secrets and lies within families, the impact of grief, the history of the European migration into America. These all give the book real depth in a way that will help it stand the test of time.

This book does contain violence and gruesome details but the chills come from the growing supernatural threat. The level of menace ratchets up steadily and the pages just fly by. The ending is a perfect blending of old story and new, leaving the reader with a firm sense of closure, that still allows for the continuance of Sleepy Hollow as a town where the unusual and supernatural can happen.

Reach for your pumpkins, the Halloween reading season has officially started. Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow is out now.

My thanks to Titan Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Horseman’ by Christina Henry in exchange for an honest review.

I was looking forward to this novel given my earlier experience of Christina Henry’s writing, the premise and that incredible cover art, yet it proved a disappointment for me on a number of counts.

This is a sequel to Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and while the date is never specifically mentioned, it is stated that the original tale’s characters, Katrina and Abraham (Brom), have been together thirty-two years. So, given that the original story took place in 1790, my calculator makes this set in the early 1820s. Yet I felt that there was little sense of the historic period and both the dialogue and internal monologue of Ben, its fourteen year-old narrator, seemed very modern.

While it isn’t always the case with a young protagonist, to me ‘Horseman’ reads like a novel written for young teens.

Very central to the narrative is Ben’s ongoing angst over not being born a boy and so denied the opportunity of becoming the leader of the ‘Sleepy Hollow Boys’ to reenact the events of thirty plus years past. It seems an odd ambition, plus Ben need not worry as there’s about to be a resurgence of horrific occurrences in Sleepy Hollow, including headless bodies! What larks!

I did feel empathy for Ben as even born to wealth and privilege, an insular community with strong ties to the Old World in the early 19th century wouldn’t be the easiest location to find your place in life, especially with grandparents like these.

Ben had been born Bente and being orphaned at a young age was raised by Brom and Katrina. Partway through the story Ben reveals that Brom had missed his son, Bendix, and “wanted his son back, so he made me his son instead. I wasn’t angry about it. I liked being this way. It was the way I felt I really was inside, not just because of what Brom wanted.”

Again, I felt for Ben, so clearly an outsider though wasn’t that convinced by the above statement as Ben hero-worships Brom (there is so much praise for Brom in Ben’s musings that goes on and on) and from a young age has been desperate to please him. Meanwhile, grandma Katrina, with a rather narrow vision of what options are open to a woman, desires her grandchild to embrace femininity and nags and nags about dresses etc. It is quite a weird family dynamic with Ben caught between these conflicting expectations. If set in modern times, no doubt it would be therapy all around!

Of course, then there is all the spooky goings on in the woods. Some of this worked for me and other aspects fell flat. I can’t say more without entering spoiler territory but it felt a bit of a muddle. Also, the community of Sleepy Hollow lived up to its name by being apparently willing to ignore that terrible things were happening to children in the local woods.

While I absolutely loved ‘The Ghost Tree’ as well as Irving’s original Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I couldn’t find much enthusiasm for ‘Horseman’. It scored very low on my folk horror scale. The cover art though was amazing and doubly so for its audiobook cover of a spectral horse made of tree branches.

Still, scanning other reviews and ratings, I am clearly an outlier on this.

Thank you for the eArc copy.

I really enjoyed this retelling of the classic gothic folk tale of Sleepy Hollow!

I was hooked from the first twist to the main character at the end of chapter one! The characters were interesting and we'll rounded particularly young Ben, who made a great narrator. The eerie presence of the Horseman, and the terrifying presence of the 'creature' in the woods made this a great read for Spooky Season, and I was racing through trying to find out what was happening!
I felt the ending was a little overcomplicated, but the most poignant moments really stood out, and overall it was a gripping read.

I'm starting to have something of a problem with Christina Henry's books; namely that I love them so much that I end up reading them in a single sitting. This is the third time that this has happened now, where I've loved her work so much that I've kept reading long after I should have put the book down because I became so engrossed in it that I needed to see what happens next, even if it means I'm awake all night reading. Which I guess isn't too bad a problem to have with an author.

Horseman is set two decades after the original story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and focuses on Ben, the grandson of Brom Bones and Katrina Van Tassel. The story begins with Ben and his friend playing in the woods, but their games are interrupted when a group of men from the town pass by, heading deeper into the woods. With their curiosity piqued, the two lads follow along after the men and soon discover that one of the other boys of the town has been killed, with his head and his hands missing.

Ben is convinced that this is a sign that the headless horseman is behind the killing, and thinks that he might be able to figure out why; but things quickly become even stranger when a dark presence in the woods starts to stalk him, killing off one of the sheep from their farm, and going after other boys of the town. Now Ben thinks that their might be another creature in the woods, one that won't stop killing people. But to make matters worse, he not only has to convince his grandparents that he's right, and that something needs to be done, but he also has to convince them to let him be himself. You see, Ben was born a girl, and now that he's getting older his grandmother is trying to force him to become a decent young lady; something that Ben refuses to ever allow to happen.

Whilst I've never read the original tale I am familiar enough with the story of Sleepy Hollow that as soon as it was announced that Christina Henry was going to be writing a spooky sequel I was instantly on board. As I said earlier, I've loved her previous work, and knew that this was going to be the kind of story that worked well with her style of horror, but one of the things that I wasn't expecting was that it was going to feature a trans lead and how wonderfully Christine handled his story.

When the book begins Ben is simply Ben, a boy bordering on being a young man playing in the spooky woods around Sleepy Hollow with his best friend Sander. He loves to play Sleepy Hollow Boys, where they act out the story of the headless horseman and Ichabod Crane, he climbs trees and plays in the dirt, and is braver than his friend. It's not until Ben heads home and his grandmother scolds him for getting himself so dirty and orders him to bathe and put on a nice dress that you even realise he's more than a regular lad.

This is one of the things that I loved about the book, that for the most part there's not a huge amount of fuss made about Ben wanting to live his life as a boy, and how most of the people in his life accept that he calls himself Ben, plays with other boys, and wears trousers. A large part of this comes from how he was raised by his grandparents, following the deaths of his parents when he was still young. His grandfather, Brom, is a very macho kind of man, though one with a huge heart who's not afraid to be sensitive. He's seen how Ben wants to be, how he's always wanted to be treated and he's allowed it. This being the era it is I'm not sure you could say that he'd understand completely how Ben feels, or that he could go on to live his life presenting male, but that doesn't matter. He loves his grandson enough to support him, to let him be himself and do what he loves, and that's enough.

But, this isn't something that just takes place in the background of the book, and Ben's gender identity does come up in the story, especially after a particularly heated confrontation with hi grandmother; who's sure that one day Ben will accept that he's a girl and start acting like a woman. After telling his grandmother that he'd never get married or be a woman, that he'd cut off his hair and run away forever to live as a man she dares him to do it, and he does. He cuts off his long hair and he's ready to leave. He doesn't, however, get to leave home, but seeing that he was going to, seeing how determined he is to be himself changes something in Katrina. Instead of trying to force Ben to wear a dress and learn to be a young woman she makes him boys clothes. It's an incredibly moving moment, to see her affirming her grandson's identity and standing by him. We even get this from Brom later in the book, when he refers to Ben with male pronouns.

It would have been so easy to have this story veer into having guardians who don't understand or approve, to have them fight against Ben every step of the way; especially in a historical novel such as this where there just wouldn't have been the understanding or language to know what a trans man was. But instead of that Christina Henry does something better, she writes a story about the love and acceptance of a trans child. This might not seem that big or important, but it really is. With so much anti-trans sentiment in the world, with vocal transphobic minorities fighting loudly to remove trans rights and protections to have a positive trans narrative, where a characters transness isn't something that brings them pain or misery, but joy and acceptance is so damn important. There were times this book made me feel genuinely emotional because of how happy Ben's story made me feel.

Sadly, it's not all joy for Ben, or the reader, as there's some seriously spooky shit going on in Sleepy Hollow. Considering the title of the book, and the original story this is following on from, it's surprising that this isn't just something as simple as a story about a ghostly headless horseman charging through the woods cutting people's heads off. From the very beginning there's hints that there's something more to things than you'd expect thanks to the added fact that hands are being taken as well as heads, and it soon becomes apparent that Henry has chosen to go for something much more original and complex than the headless horseman as her antagonist.

I won't say too much about what's going on so as not to spoil the surprises, but it's a brilliantly unique idea, and one that will keep you guessing over the course of the book as Ben learns more and tries to figure out what's going on. I have to be honest, I didn't see the reveal coming, and was completely surprised by what the answers were. And even when you think you know everything and the story's done it doesn't end there are there's still a good chunk of the book left to go as Henry reveals a further mystery that will continue on into Ben's adult life.

Horseman was one of those books that I was looking forward to when it was first announced. I knew that I was going to enjoy it, but I didn't realise that I was going to love it so much. It was better than I was ever hoping it would be, and I'm honestly sad that it's over as I could have spent so much loner with these characters and this story. I got a digital copy of this to review from the publishers, and as soon as I was done with it I was ordering the beautiful hardback, signed edition with red sprayed edges as I know that this is a book that I need in my collection, one that I'm going to treasure for a long, long time, and that I'm going to read over and over again.

I’m a huge fan of the author and couldn’t wait to read Horseman, her take on the famous story by Washington Irving. I really loved this book. I loved the way the author develops the setting and brings the little town of Sleepy Hollow which seems very sinister at times to life. The characters are well written and really come to life on the page. Having read Irving’s original story I can see its inspiration running through the book. The book is very dark at times as Ben determines to find out if the stories of the Headless Horseman are real or if something darker lingers in the forbidden areas in woods around the village. I was gripped from start to finish. I really loved this book.

Horseman is the haunting sequel to the 1820 novel The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and takes place two decades after the events that unfolded in the original. We are introduced to 14-year-old trans boy Bente “Ben” Van Brunt, who has been raised by his idiosyncratic grandparents - lively Brom “Bones” Van Brunt and prim Kristina Van Tassel - in the small town of Sleepy Hollow, New York, where gossip and rumour run rife and people are exceedingly closed-minded. He has lived with them on their farm ever since he was orphaned when his parents, Bendix and Fenna, died in suspicious and enigmatic circumstances. Ben and his only friend, Sander, head into the woodland one Autumn day to play a game known as Sleepy Hollow Boys, but they are both a little startled when they witness a group of men they recognise from the village discussing the headless, handless body of a local boy that has just been found. But this isn't the end; it is only the beginning. From that moment on, Ben feels an otherworldly presence following him wherever he ventures, and one day while scanning his grandfather’s fields he catches a fleeting glimpse of a weird creature seemingly sucking blood from a victim.

An evil of an altogether different nature. But Ben knows this is not the elusive Horseman who has been the primary focus of folkloric tales in the area for many years because he can both feel and hear his presence. However, unlike others who fear the Headless Horseman, Ben can hear whispers in the woods at the end of a forbidden path, and he has visions of the Horseman who says he is there to protect him. Ben soon discovers connections between the recent murders and the death of his parents and realises he has been shaded from the truth about them his whole life. Thus begins a journey to unravel the mystery and establish his identity in the process. This is an enthralling and compulsively readable piece of horror fiction building on Irvings’ solid ground. Evoking such feelings as horror, terror, dread and claustrophobic oppressiveness, this tale invites you to immerse yourself in its sinister, creepy and disturbing narrative. The staggering beauty of the remote village location is juxtaposed with the darkness of the demons and devilish spirits that lurk there, and the village residents aren't exactly welcoming to outsiders or accepting of anyone different from their norm.

What I love the most is that it is subtle and full of nuance, instead of the usual cheap thrills with which the genre is often pervaded, meaning the feeling of sheer panic creeps up on you when you least expect, and you come to the sudden realisation that the story has managed to get under your skin, into your psyche and even into your dreams (or should that be nightmares?) Published at a time when the nights are closing in and the light diminishes ever more rapidly, not to mention with Halloween around the corner, this is the perfect autumnal read for the spooky season full of both supernatural and real-world horrors. It begins innocuously enough to lull you into a false sense of security but soon becomes bleak and hauntingly atmospheric as well as frightening before descending into true nightmare-inducing territory. A chilling and eerie romp, and a story full of superstition, secrets, folklore and old wives’ tales and with messages about love, loss, belonging, family, grief, being unapologetically you and becoming more accepting and tolerant of those who are different. Highly recommended.

Horseman revisits events in Sleepy Hollow, a remote township in the woods of the US Eastern seaboard, some years after Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". You don't have to know the details of the earlier book, as Henry gives plenty of context, but I think you will get a richer experience if you do.

The story opens as Sander and his friend Ben Van Brunt visit the deep woods to play "Sleepy Hollow Boys", acting out the famous story. Their game is though set aside when a group of villagers gallop past, having made a grim discovery - which turns out to be only the first in a series. Someone - or something - in the woods seems to have woken, and to be killing in a particularly horrible way. Gradually, Ben realises that what's going on may be connected to the Van Brunt family, and tension rises between grandfather Brom and grandmother Katrina.

Horseman is one of those stories where attempts are being made to hide or bury what happened in the past, but if danger is to be seen off, it's necessary to face the darkness, however painful that may be. Easy to say, harder to do when one has to navigate a web of taciturn family members, suspicious villagers and enigmatic legends. It all means Ben has to grow up very quickly - going in a few days from being a carefree child to one who will never, never, play "Sleepy Hollow Boys" again.

Alongside that narrative of growing-up, Horseman is also a story of difference and acceptance. Sleepy Hollow is a very backwards community (indeed, Henry hints, perhaps almost unnaturally backward, unperturbed by any currents of change in the wider world. What might cause that?) It is also an inward-looking community, where conformism is important and everyone knows everyone else's business. But facing up to long buried secrets - and, as becomes clear, lies - is hard in such a place, and may expose other things too. The privileged and slightly eccentric Van Brunts may to a degree be able to face that down, but they also seem to be at the centre of a series of gruesome events - and they have enemies.

And what of the Horseman himself? Brom denies he exists at all. He may have his own reasons for that, but Ben seems to hear the hoofbeats - or is it just his heart? - and for the first time, begins to doubt Brom's word and past deeds.

I really enjoyed Horseman. Apart from its sympathetic portrayal of a teenager who is, most definitely a bit of an outsider, despite being a member of a wealthy family, it gives a vivid picture of life at a particular time and place complete with a range of characters, from the stupid to the villainous. At the heart of things is that central triangle of Brom, Katrina and Ben whose love for one another shines through, even when they bitterly disagree as, here, they do.

Adding to Henry's takes on familiar and less familiar motifs and stories, Horseman is entertaining, often surprising and deserves to be read at a gallop, preferably into the early hours.

Christina Henry brings her twisted take on classic stories to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow with this snappy paced horror novel.
Set 20 years after the events of the original story, the book tells the story of Abraham Van Brunt's grandchild Ben, who is haunted by the return of what appears to be the Horseman legend.
What begins as a fairly straight-forward successor quickly spirals into a twist-filled story as darker truths about the town and its woods come to light.
Henry delivers her tale with a breezy prose style that's easy to consume, while juggling the tricky task of being respectful to the original lore and characters while leaving her own footprints in the Sleepy Hollow sandbox.
Overall, it's a fun, fresh take on the Horseman legend.

Repeat visitors to An Average Life will know by now how much I love Christina Henry. I'm first in to request ARCs from Titan and always preorder the signed editions from Forbidden Planet too. Alas they cannot all be perfect and for the first time I haven't awarded a 5 star goodreads rating. So here we go..

The Horseman; based upon Sleepy Hollow, the story is told in first person present by Bente. Born female and identifying as male, Ben is fighting against the expectations of him to be the good mannered little girl his grandmother and the rest of The Hollow demands.

Playing in the woods, scrapping with other kids and generally getting up to the usual mischief young boys enjoy, Ben trails his grandfather and townsmen one eventful day to discover the body of a young lad, headless and handless. Awakening the old stories of The Horseman.

But The Horseman isn't the only danger in those woods, and there's much more to the old tales. Ben is about to discover how deep his family ties are in The Hollow.
*

Perhaps because The Horseman has come so quick on the heels of Henry's previous title Near The Bone, I may be weighing up two entirely different novels under bias (I LOVED Near The Bone) and finding this latest release lacking.

For me The Horseman has a much younger vibe- I'd personally recommend to teenagers. Though this isn't usually a deterrent for me when reading, The Horseman had less grit than I'd come to expect from C Henry.

I felt there was too much justification given for the origins of the evil in this book, I've begun to prefer my antagonists have less reasoning- they're scarier that way. The Horseman ties almost everything up with a pretty, moralistic bow that diminished the impact of the horror. Well, everything except that last chapter that just went wild and made no sense at all.

As always the character development is brilliant, the pacing is well maintained throughout and I genuinely cared for the characters. We see Ben mature throughout the book as he uncovers secrets about himself, his family and the town he thought he knew.
My favourite character arcs were grandmother Katrina who desperately struggles with Bente's choice to be a boy, and grandfather Brom who can do no wrong where Ben is concerned.

The Horseman is a slightly dark fairytale retelling, an easy read but missing the spark I need to give it a high rating.

I love the way Christina Henry takes well-known classic tales and puts her own spin on them, turning them into something new and fresh. Horseman is a 'sequel' to Irving Washington's classic story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, taking place about twenty years later.

Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows of the legendary Horseman, but no one really believes in him until fourteen year old Ben stumbles upon the headless body of a child in the woods. Could the Horseman be real after all? Or does something even more sinister stalk the woods?

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of my favourite stories, so I loved the way some of the original text was sprinkled through the book, acting like a touchstone. Ben's grandparents are the famous Brom and Katrina, now wealthy farmers, which causes friction in the village due to jealousy and Brom's habit of ensuring he is always at the centre of things. While Ben is desperate to grow up to be just like Brom, the main theme of the story is about being true to yourself, accepting who you really are and not being afraid to be different. Horseman is also a story about the importance of friendship and family.

Like the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow, you might think you know the legend of the Horseman but there are still plenty of surprises here! There's more than one monster for a start! The creepy setting and evil lurking in the woods also reminded me of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. Like Christina's previous book, The Ghost Tree, I am not sure if the story is supposed to be a Young Adult, but it does read like one. There are some gruesome bits (headless bodies!) but it's not too scary. I wasn't so keen on the 'ten years later' segment at the end of the book, which I found rather sad, but I did enjoy the final twist.

Horseman is a deliciously chilling read for autumn. A historical horror story dripping with sinister atmosphere, Christina's fans will love it - along with anyone who adored the original story. A perfect Halloween treat!


Thank you to Christina Henry and Titan Books for my copy of this book, which I requested via NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Christina Henry picks up the classic novel two decades later, at Sleepy Hollow, an isolated village rife with gossip, superstitions, folklore, legends of the headless horseman, a place that doesn't like outsiders or those who are different. 14 year old Ben van Brunt, born a girl, sees himself as a boy, having been raised by his loving grandparents on their farm after the loss of his parents, Bendix and Fenna. He hero worships his larger than life grandfather, Brom Bones, a man who gets his own way, whatever it takes, and is both feared and admired in equal measure by locals. He has a trickier relationship with Katrina, his grandmother, who is insistent on getting him to behave and dress as a girl, and acquiring the appropriate skills, such as sewing, resulting in anger and regular clashes of will.

Ben is playing Sleepy Hollow Boys with his only friend, Sander, in the woods where the mutilated body of a boy has been discovered, without his head and hands. This will not be the only victim of a evil and terrorising presence that grows stronger in the haunted woods, that includes parts where no human ventures, and there is talk of the return of the headless horseman. Brom does not believe in any of this folklore, although an apprehensive Ben can feel and hear the presence of a horseman, and its protective connection which he cannot quite grasp or understand. As it becomes apparent to Ben that the truth of his parents death has been kept from him, he begins to become aware that there are many aspects of his family history he had no knowledge of. Will Ben be able to survive the increasing dangers and horrors that are set to come his way?

This is a atmospheric and creepy novel, with Sleepy Hollow a village that vibrates with a magic woven into its very being, a place that accepts the price of living in such a beautiful location is the horror and demons that go with it, including the loss of children. Henry goes on to portray a Sleepy Hollow that changes in the space of another decade when Ben is 24 years old, it has grown with more outsiders and become a more thriving and bustling place, although a poison still lurks. This is a wonderfully dark and engaging read, of family, love, loss, grief, of what one will do to protect loved ones, identity, being true to who you are, and acceptance. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Thank you to netgalley and Titan books for giving me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book is so perfect for spooky season and I implore you to get it!

Set 20 years after Ichabod Crane's alleged encounter with the Horseman, 14-year-old Ben stumbles upon the headless body of a child whilst playing in the woods. This discovery brings old tales back to life, as gossip spreads through Sleepy Hollow and Ben sets about to discover the true perpetrator of these awful deaths.

This was genuinely the hardest book to put down. As with all of Christina Henry's books, the combination of creepiness, mystery and wonderful writing just makes for such a fantastic and atmospheric read. Ben's character is so well written and such a great lens through which to witness the events happening in Sleepy Hollow.

The book also has great pacing, I didn't feel like there were any lulls at all. Every part of the story was crucial and led me further into the mystery. It felt easy to read and follow and kept my attention the whole time. The only criticism I would say is that I did feel like the story could have ended a little earlier and the last section be fleshed out and made into a sequel though to explain it more thoroughly. Also just because selfishly I want more of it.

In previous years I had no interest in horror or even the fantasy horror genre, however at this stage, I would happily read anything that Christina Henry writes. Bring me all of the scary.

I'm not totally sure who the correct readership would be for this book, as the MC is 14 years old and relatively young compared to modern teens, but the horror aspect of it seems to be pitched above YA. Either way, adults would enjoy it, as well as more mature teens. I'd definitely recommend to fans of Stephen King, and Stranger Things.

"I hadn't like Cristoffel, but he didn't deserve to die."

In the haunting town of Sleepy Hollow, Ben Van Brunt longed to be just like their father (who died when Ben was young) and Grandfather, Brom Bones. Ben lived for risk and adventure, refusing to stay inside and comply with their grandmother's wishes of wearing skirts and dresses (for they were impractical and would always make it harder to climb) or staying at home to attend to their studies so that one day Ben could be married off.

For many generations, children were warned against treading into the forests surrounding Sleepy Hollows, lest they wanted to meet the headless horseman and whatever cruel faith that may arise. But the forests called to Ben, and so they, along with their friend, spent many years in the forests playing.

Until one day, when they come across the body of a headless boy...

I honestly could not put this book down, from the first few pages I was hooked and eager to read on.

There was so much tension and fear in the unknown that surrounded the book and it's characters. I loved and felt so much sympathy for Ben, who just wanted to be recognised as the person they are. Ben was so determined to do what everyone else was too scared and/or too preoccupied to do and I admired that. But something that bravery and in some cases oblivion put them in more danger than they thought.

I of course already love Henry's writing from reading previous works of hers, so was immensely excited to have been accepted for this arc and was eager to read it straight away! I never wanted the days to end as it meant having to put the book down and go back to normal life until I could pick it back up again.

The story was chilling enough to keep me on my toes, always questioning what was going to happen next. A perfect read for the Spooky season or anyone who is a lover of the original Sleepy Hollows movie/tv show!

Thank you so much to the publishers for providing me with an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Horseman by Christina Henry

I want to thank Titan Books and Netgalley for sending me an e-ARC of this title for a fair and honest review.

I want to start by saying I have read most of Christina Henry’s work and they are written by an author you have to understand when going into them. Set from a first-person perspective I feel some people may find the writing style ‘younger’ than the intended audience. This is generally because our protagonist for the majority of the book is a fourteen-year-old. This is something Henry does amazingly well and something I personally enjoy but it sometimes might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Once you remember and keep in mind that Ben, our protagonist, is at the tender age of fourteen in a small village in the 1820’s (roughly) it makes much more sense and works extremely well for the narrative. That said I can understand how if you ignore the fact or focus just on the storytelling without remembering who our narrator is it may come off as aimed at the younger end, but it most definitely isn’t.

As I have mentioned the story follows a fourteen-year-old, Ben Van Brunt, who loves to play ‘Sleepy Hollow boys,’ reenacting the events Brom Bones once lived through. Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows about the Horseman and the tales but no one really believes in him. Not even Ben’s grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when the horseman chased the upstart Ichabod Crane out of town. He is adamant it’s just a legend, the villagers’ way of sensationalizing the quick disappearance of Crane. Ben couldn’t see why their grandfather would lie but when Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the words it’s hard to not start questioning. Slowly Ben begins to question everything they’ve been told, even by the great Brom Bones. Could the Horseman be real and claiming the children of Sleepy Hollow or is there something even more sinister stalking the woods?

Lead through the events from Ben’s point of view we begin to learn that all legends have to start somewhere and not everything is what it appears to be.

I found the writing style engaging and well-paced and suited to the narrator changing adequately when the narrator ages. The story kept me hooked and guessing throughout. While the book is yet to be released, I will try to avoid any spoilers but the ending I personally found memorable and a wonderful way to tie up the story and legend.

I personally cannot find fault in the book. It is, in my opinion, an excellent spooky read.

The Horseman will be published on the 28th September 2021 by Titan Books.

Rounding up to three stars..

It missed the mark slightly for me.
At times I felt like I was reading a book for a much younger person.
Likeable enough,but nothing that stood out for me at all.

 

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Thanks to Titan Books and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited to read this that I bumped it right to the top of my reading list as I love the story of Sleepy Hollow.

Unfortunately it just didn't work for me. I think I just fundamentally didn't gel with the writing style. The book (particularly the character dialogue and the constant repetition of character names...) read like a book aimed at tweens/young teens than which jarred with the horror aspect and violent content.

The ending was really good though so an extra star for that.

Everyone knows the story about what happened all those years ago in Sleepy Hollow when the Horseman arrived to chase Schoolmaster Ichabod Crane out of town. But now, it's nothing more than a myth. A scary story to keep the kids from venturing too deep in the woods and getting lost.

Ben loves the story, even re-enacts it with their best friend, even when their Grandparents Katrina and Brom insist it's nothing more than a ghost story. But when they finds the body of a headless child out in the woods, they're sure the Horseman is there, watching on. But if everyone is right and he's just a bad dream, then what other monsters are out there hiding in plain sight?

"Strange things come true in the Hollow. Everybody knows that."



It's always risky to retell a famous story, and even riskier to come up with a sequel to an iconic story - but Christina Henry has done it perfectly. Keeping the voice and feeling of the original Sleepy Hollow but with her own dark twist added in. It was wonderful revisiting familiar names like Katrina and Brom, seeing where they are now, and Ben was absolutely wonderful. Full of fire, full of curiosity, full of life.

Ben was born with a different name and now refers to himself as a young boy - knowing he is not the person he was told he was at birth. Now, fair warning, this is set in a small dutch town in a time before electricity - so the townsfolk aren't exactly understanding of people who live outside of their ideas of gender norms so could definitely be uncomfortable for some readers.

I read this entire thing in one session, definitely keeping the lights on the whole time, and was suspended in a land of magic and wonder. You know how the words 'epic' and 'awesome' have been overused and kind of lost their meaning - those words surely apply to this story. Chilling, fast-paced and engrossing.

Now, there was quite a lot of monologuing through this story - a little bit too much telling and not enough showing - but when Henry does show you something you're not going to forget it. Every time we take a bloody, mysterious step through the story it's fully visceral and so memorable.