Her dark takes on established stories and legends have really been thrilling and well-told. I’ve really come to look forward to each new Christina Henry book. When the youths discover the headless body of a child in the woods near town they start to question the stories and whether or not they may actually be real. Now, some two decades after the supposed events when the Horseman scared off ol’ Ichabod, fourteen year old Ben van Brunt and some of the Sleepy Hollow boys often spend their playtime reenacting the Horseman exploits. Even Brom Bones who claims to have been there when the Horseman chased the skinny Crane fellow out of town, no longer really believes in the old story. (Sept.The Headless Horseman story is just that … a story, right? Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows the story, but no one actually believes it. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. Readers won’t be wowed, but they will be entertained.
Occasional wobbles of worldbuilding-how are there residents Ben doesn’t know in a one-street village?-and the handling of Ben’s gender identity, combined with flip-the-switch character development, tarnish but do not ruin the experience. Uncovering those motivations, as well as his family history and why the evil haunts it, soon consumes every aspect of Ben’s existence. This monstrous evil is not the Horseman-though Ben senses him, too, as a weird guardian with altogether different intentions. Later, Ben’s sense of an eerie presence in his grandfather’s fields is confirmed when he spies a creature sucking blood from a second victim. Skylarking in the autumn woods, Ben witnesses village men conferring over the headless, handless body of another local boy. Twenty years after the events of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 14-year-old trans boy Ben Van Brunt is raised by his grandparents, the rollicking Brom “Bones” Van Brunt and prim Kristina Van Tassel, in the small New York town, his parents long dead in mysterious circumstances. The horror in this sequel to the classic Irving yarn from Henry ( Near the Bone) isn’t particularly fresh-it’s a straightforward monster-in-the-woods scenario-but there’s still plenty to keep the pages turning.
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