Hawk Mountain

A Novel

By: Conner Habib

Narrated by: Conner Habib

2022 Audible’s Best in Mysteries & Thrillers

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.

©2022 Andre Khalil (P)2022 Penguin Audio

great book, narration less so

This is an unsettling book that I found I had to keep listening to even as I dreaded what was going to happen next. Very suspensful. However, it took a long time to get used to the author's narration, which was like listening to someone at an open-mic poetry reading. He seemed more into the sound of the words than telling a story and representing the characters as distinct people. I found it very distracting.

What. Was. Thaaaaat?!

From page one to the last sentence, my palms have been sweating, my stomach clenched, my breath shallow…I don’t even know if I can call this “suspense” because it seems too weak a word. This book is horrifying, disturbing, intense, and terrific in all the right ways and I won’t stop thinking about it for a long, long time. I need everyone I know to read it immediately so that I can process this experience with others.

Jaw dropping

On more than one occasion, I yelled out loud because Todd's descent into madness is unpredictable but compelling

Great debut

I have been following Conner Habib on Twitter for a while and was excited to get Hawk Mountain. I picked the Audible version to here his story in his own voice. I was not disappointed. It was well done and had me both wanting to hear what came next and being creeped out by the main character’s behavior. This was a great debut for Conner Habib.

Buckle Up

I'm constantly listening to podcasts/books. After finishing Hawk Mountain, I spent days in silence.