Imagine a small country town during a winter storm the likes of which they haven't seen in decades. Cut off from the rest of the world, no cellphone signals, radio transmissions going nowhere, and impassable roads. Now imagine hundreds of creatures coming from below and sacrificing people to awaken the elder gods deep in the bowels of the earth.
If that isn't a perfect setting for a horror book I don't know what is. And this is the situation in Daniel Church's upcoming novel, The Hollows.
This is a book epic in scope and combines creature horror, folk horror, and lovecraftian like mythos in an amazingly seamless manner. That's not easy to pull off!
As bodies start to pile up in town, it's up to the deputy, Ellie, a 40-ish something woman, to get to the bottom of these grisly murders while also dealing with a snowstorm that boxes the town in with no communication to the outside world.
Ellie might sound like your typical hero protagonist but she is far from perfect. In fact, she's such a great multi-faceted character, we're never quite sure if she will break down and go all Rambo on everyone around her.
These truly well thought out characters are one of the things I love about this book. It's almost Stephen King-esqe in scope and magnitude as we see the good and horrible in the citizens of this town. This makes for some tense encounters between them.
But, keep in mind, there are creatures at play here almost from the beginning of the book. Terrifying monstrosities that are pure nightmare fuel. Add to that a family that is cult like in its devotion to themselves and everybody else be damned, and you have all the elements for this extremely engaging and action packed story.
The scares are aplenty as these creatures search, organise, and have their bloody ways with the inhabitants of the town. It's up to the survivors, with a perhaps unstable leader guiding them, to figure out what is causing this and how to stop it, if indeed it even can be stopped.
But they might have to make a deal with the devil, as it were, and we all know if you do that you have to suffer the consequences. And suffering is in abundance for the entire town.
This is a book that will stay with you for a long time. It's epic, frightening, keeps you guessing, and it's one of my favorite horror books of the year. I definitely recommend it.
This book will be released on November 8th, but you can pre-order it by clicking this link.
And for my full video review, check out my Horror Reads YouTube channel.
