Genre Fiction
![Conner Habib - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_conner_habib.jpg)
Hawk Mountain: A Novel
An English teacher is gaslit by his charismatic high school bully in this tense story of deception, manipulation, and murder.
Single father Todd is relaxing at the beach with his son, Anthony, when he catches sight of a man approaching from the water's edge. As the man draws closer, Todd recognizes him as Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly in their teenage years but now seems overjoyed to have "run into" his old friend. Jack suggests a meal to catch up. And can he spend the night?
What follows is a fast-paced story of obsession and cunning. As Jack invades Todd's life, pain and intimidation from the past unearth knife-edge suspense in the present. Set in a small town on the New England coast, Conner Habib's debut introduces characters trapped in isolation by the expansive woods and the encroaching ocean, their violence an expression of repressed desire and the damage it can inflict. Both gruesome and tender, Hawk Mountain offers a compelling look at how love and hate are indissoluble, intertwined until the last breath.
Single father Todd is relaxing at the beach with his son, Anthony, when he catches sight of a man approaching from the water's edge. As the man draws closer, Todd recognizes him as Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly in their teenage years but now seems overjoyed to have "run into" his old friend. Jack suggests a meal to catch up. And can he spend the night?
What follows is a fast-paced story of obsession and cunning. As Jack invades Todd's life, pain and intimidation from the past unearth knife-edge suspense in the present. Set in a small town on the New England coast, Conner Habib's debut introduces characters trapped in isolation by the expansive woods and the encroaching ocean, their violence an expression of repressed desire and the damage it can inflict. Both gruesome and tender, Hawk Mountain offers a compelling look at how love and hate are indissoluble, intertwined until the last breath.
Editorial Reviews
"Conner Habib's debut novel is a bleak, dark adrenaline rush."
― Clive Barker
"Dripping with menace from the first page, this story of childhood enemies meeting up fifteen years later is utterly enthralling.… [C]ompelling, shocking, and beautiful."
― Liz Nugent, author of Lying in Wait
"Tender, horrifying, utterly transfixing."
― Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
"A deeply disturbing yet, somehow, soaring novel I won't soon forget. It plumbs the depths of traumatized characters trapped within our damaging culture. I couldn't look away, even when I was looking from between my fingers."
― Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Pallbearers Club
"The opening lines of Hawk Mountain plummet you into an atmosphere of creeping dread and precarious restraint that won't let up until the final, shocking moments."
― Caitlin Doughty, bestselling author of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
"Hawk Mountain is deft horror, made of precise strikes into our most vulnerable psychic terrain… Finally, a horror story that knows cisheteropatriarchy is the villain!"
― Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
"Conner Habib writes with [a] hallucinatory precision, and a kind of merciless humanity, about the poisonous work of repression. His forebears―Poe, Highsmith, even classical tragedy―are clear, but his originality is clearer still. Hawk Mountain is a work of strange, glittering darkness."
― Mark O'Connell, author of Notes from an Apocalypse
"A brilliantly disturbing, expertly crafted literary noir that will stick with you long after you put it down. Conner Habib has written a flawless meditation on the fruitless, but eternally human, effort to kill off the parts of ourselves we cannot love―literally and metaphorically. I love this book."
― Sara Gran, author of The Infinite Blacktop
"A movin...
― Clive Barker
"Dripping with menace from the first page, this story of childhood enemies meeting up fifteen years later is utterly enthralling.… [C]ompelling, shocking, and beautiful."
― Liz Nugent, author of Lying in Wait
"Tender, horrifying, utterly transfixing."
― Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
"A deeply disturbing yet, somehow, soaring novel I won't soon forget. It plumbs the depths of traumatized characters trapped within our damaging culture. I couldn't look away, even when I was looking from between my fingers."
― Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Pallbearers Club
"The opening lines of Hawk Mountain plummet you into an atmosphere of creeping dread and precarious restraint that won't let up until the final, shocking moments."
― Caitlin Doughty, bestselling author of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
"Hawk Mountain is deft horror, made of precise strikes into our most vulnerable psychic terrain… Finally, a horror story that knows cisheteropatriarchy is the villain!"
― Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
"Conner Habib writes with [a] hallucinatory precision, and a kind of merciless humanity, about the poisonous work of repression. His forebears―Poe, Highsmith, even classical tragedy―are clear, but his originality is clearer still. Hawk Mountain is a work of strange, glittering darkness."
― Mark O'Connell, author of Notes from an Apocalypse
"A brilliantly disturbing, expertly crafted literary noir that will stick with you long after you put it down. Conner Habib has written a flawless meditation on the fruitless, but eternally human, effort to kill off the parts of ourselves we cannot love―literally and metaphorically. I love this book."
― Sara Gran, author of The Infinite Blacktop
"A movin...
Readers Top Reviews
Kindle wendyLau
I think this is one of the worst books I have ever read. I wish I hadn't wasted the money.
Ashley F.Ashley F
I can’t say anything about this book that Clive Barker hasn’t already said better. It’s a masterfully written page-turner that will take your breath away and shake parts of your mind you forgot were there.
Mr.BandicootAshle
I couldn't stop once I started listening to the audio book. This story is about a man so utterly disconnected with himself that he will do just about anything to stay away from his true feelings. The book is amazing will definitely be adding this to my collection. I'm excited for what this author does next because this was amazingly creepy and psychological.
BookwormDCPsyDMr.
The climax happened before the halfway mark, and the build-up was too weak to justify the characters' behavior. I was never emotionally invested, though I really tried to be. Every element felt far too formulaic to allow a deeper dive into the novel's world, and the story just sort of skated along the surface. I'd been anticipating this release for a long time, so it's quite a shame.
