But then Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the woods near the village, and the sinister discovery makes Ben question everything the adults in Sleepy Hollow have ever said. Fourteen-year-old Ben loves to play Sleepy Hollow boys, reenacting the events Brom once lived through. Twenty years after those storied events, the village is a quiet place. Brom says that’s just legend, the village gossips talking. Not even Ben Van Brunt’s grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. SummaryĮveryone in Sleepy Hollow knows about the Horseman, but no one really believes in him. Christina Henry’s Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow, attempts to create a narrative that adds a unique perspective, but also helps to add onto the scarce folklore and mythos surrounding the Headless Horseman. I feel like it is a story that most people know, but it is not really fully fleshed out unless you’ve read or watched certain things about it. (Sept.I’ve always enjoyed the story of Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman.

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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