His Hideous Heart

13 of Edgar Allan Poe's Most Unsettling Tales Reimagined

By: Dahlia Adler - editor

Narrated by: Amanda Lovelace, Caitlin Davies, Caleb Roehrig, Dahlia Adler, Emily Lloyd-Jones, Fran Wilde, Hillary Monahan, James Fouhey, Jeanette Illidge, JorJa Brown, Kendare Blake, Robin Miles, Natalie Naudus, Tessa Gratton

Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year - 2019

"His Hideous Heart is an audiobook dream. Half of the stories are read by their authors and the other half are read by professional narrators; all are delightful and, of course, haunting." (Paste)

Thirteen of YA’s most celebrated names reimagine Edgar Allan Poe’s most surprising, unsettling, and popular tales for a new generation.

Edgar Allan Poe may be 150 years beyond this world, but the themes of his beloved works have much in common with modern young adult fiction. Whether the stories are familiar or discovered for the first time, listeners will revel in both Edgar Allan Poe's classic tales, and in the 13 unique and unforgettable ways that they've been brought to life.

Contributors include Dahlia Adler (reimagining "Ligeia"), Kendare Blake ("Metzengerstein"), Rin Chupeco ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue"), Lamar Giles ("The Oval Portrait"), Tessa Gratton ("Annabel Lee"), Tiffany D. Jackson ("The Cask of Amontillado"), Stephanie Kuehn ("The Tell-Tale Heart"), Emily Lloyd-Jones ("The Purloined Letter"), Amanda Lovelace ("The Raven"), Hillary Monahan ("The Masque of the Red Death"), Marieke Nijkamp ("Hop-Frog"), Caleb Roehrig ("The Pit and the Pendulum"), and Fran Wilde ("The Fall of the House of Usher").

This program is read by Dahlia Adler, Kendare Blake, JorJa Brown, Caitlin Davies, James Fouhey, Tessa Gratton, Jeanette Illidge, Emily Lloyd-Jones, Robin Miles, Natalie Naudus, Amanda Lovelace, Hillary Monahan, Caleb Roehrig, and Fran Wilde.

Praise for His Hideous Heart:

"Narrated by a dizzying array of exceptional storytellers, these short stories have something for every listener.... Recommended for listeners who can’t get enough Edgar Allan Poe or just need more thrilling audios in their listening queue." (Booklist)

"Poe's ghost happily haunts this fresh, delightfully dark collection." (Kirkus starred review)

"Adler’s anthology brims over with fierce delight and uncanny invention...if you haven’t read Poe before, His Hideous Heart works equally well as an introduction, a tribute and a loving critique." (The New York Times Book Review)

©2019 Dahlia Adler (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

This book was a rollercoaster

There were some short stories that felt faithful to Poe and were overall really nice to listen to and I enjoyed them. However, they were also a great number of chapters that deviate heavily from the source material or change the story entirely. I wasn’t able to finish it because for every good chapter there was two or three bad ones.

Uninteresting

Couldn't hold my attention for a million dollars. None of the stories had any meat, nothing to frighten or stir any emotions whatsoever. Shame, I had high hopes for this book. Waste of a credit.

Reimagining? Naah.Just superficial "wokeification"

I found the idea of inserting modern issues and aspects of contemporary social life into Poe's immortal stories very intriguing. So I was very eager to listen to this.

I am disappointed to say that this is not much more than your usual clumsy woke lecturing, that employs all the usual cheap tricks of the corporate-woke pseudo-"Social Justice". Switching characters from male to female but also narrators playing characters of the opposite sex (isn't that gender appropriation? or did i just assume their sex from their voice?)... Anyway you get the picture. This is hardly the first example of a quick woke cash grab.