Daniel Church

While I enjoyed this book, I also found myself frustrated with a couple of things. Some of it I guess was minor but it also still sat there and disrupted me. While I'm giving the book four stars, it's more likely 3.5 which I'm rounding up.

Ellie Cheetham is the town constable at the village of Barsall. The story starts with her investigating a dead body found frozen in the snow; a dead body with enough odd things to make her think something is not quite right. When notifying the family of the deceased, she realizes that they know something. Unfortunately they are antagonistic and refuse to help. That is polite since the family pretty much tries to kill Ellie. They actually are a creepy backwoods family relocated to a snowy environment. As the story develops, we find out that there are creatures that are destroying the town in preparation for an invasion by other more dangerous creatures.

I won't go into more because it's not really needed. The story is already revealed by this point to be small town isolated from the world by a winter storm must deal with supernatural forces bent on destroying the world. The characters are all nicely developed and pretty three-dimensional. I did have a bit of trouble keeping track of who was who at the beginning but don't remember that being a problem by the mid-point. The frustration points that I mentioned before were things that I considered just on the verge of realistic. For example, the family mentioned in my summary is essentially the bad guys of the book. And they do try early to kill Ellie. Her response to that was more muted than I expected. Granted, the town by that point is isolated so it's not like she can call in SWAT from a neighboring city but it still rings as off-kilter. None of those events were enough to make me roll my eyes or give up, but they were enough to pull me out.… (meer)

The Hollows by Daniel Church is a recommended folk horror novel.

In the Peak District an intense snow storm is about to hit when Constable Ellie Cheetham responds to a call about a body being found. It appears the man froze to death, but there are clues that point to his death being something else and that he his death was watched. Then the storm hits the village and the next victims are two families on the outskirts of town. Ellie soon realizes that something is killing people under the cover of darkness and the storm, and what ever it is, it is moving in closer to the village.

The writing is good, but the novel is over-written. After a strong, riveting start full of suspense and trepidation, the narrative then began to drag on a bit, drawing the story out longer than was perhaps a prudent choice. It would have benefited the overall plot to tighten up the writing and keep the focus on the action. However, many readers will be able to push past this as the ancient creatures are creepy, their actions are frightening, and the battle between good and evil is fought on several different levels.

There perhaps should be a language warning for a portion of the prospective readers. Some will be able to simple put it in context and read on, but there is a lot of usage of certain objectionable words that others may find unpleasant. The length slowed the pace down a bit too much for me. 3.5 rounded down
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Angry Robot via NetGalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2022/11/the-hollows.html… (meer)