Thank you to Minotaur Books, Netgalley and the author for an Advance Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This historical mystery thriller is actually the second in a series based around the life of a female sheriff living in Ohio in 1926. Although I didn't read the first book and had to learn a bit about the characters' back stories while reading the book, I still enjoyed it as a stand-alone novel.

An elderly woman appears to have fallen from a tunnel and been hit by a train and Sheriff Lily Ross is called to the scene. Suspecting foul play she launches an investigation to try and identify the woman and why she was in that place at that time.

Together with her friends Marvena and Hildy, Lily uncovers the woman's past which holds a buried secret that will shake her community. There's the WKKK, Underground Railway and a Mental Hospital to keep the reader hooked until the last page.

But this isn't only detective fiction - this book explores the intricacies of women's relationships with each other, the bonds of friendship and family, and what some women will do to protect their own.

A beautifully written and compelling story - 4 stars.

Somehow this book was mistakenly removed from my kindle so I cannot read to review. Thank you to Netgalley for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I swear I get the best books from St. Martin's Press. Really one of my top two publishers. Always unique books and this is one of them. I love historical fiction as they are generally well researched and I learn something. In this one, I learned about the WKKK. Oh my.

This book also has a female sherriff which I loved. Also the setting in the beautiful Appalachian area was a plus.

Part of a series but stands alone. Highly recommend.

The Appalachians are a vast and very old area covering all or parts of thirteen states in the eastern part of the US plus some of eastern Canada, a system that includes a variety of mountain ranges, and the descendants of its original settlers are a different breed from most of us. Take it back almost a hundred years and the people are even more distinctive, a blend of European and Native American backgrounds with their own culture, who lived simply, apart from “mainstream” America by choice. In The Hollows, Ms. Montgomery has captured the beauty of this one small portion of the Appalachians and the unique inhabitants of the period.

There are also secrets to be discovered by Lily and her friends, along with the reader, as well as immersion into the racial divides, labor organizing and societal inhibitions that plagued women at the time and the mystery of what really happened to the old woman. The word “hollows” carries a double meaning here, referring to a geographical distinction found in the mountains but also, in this case, to what turns out to be an insane asylum as dark as anything you’ve ever heard of. Meanwhile, Lily is running for re-election against great odds and the Women’s Ku Klux Klan, the auxiliary of the better-known men’s organization, is creating trouble in the community.

A book like this one appeals to me greatly because I came away from it knowing a bit more about our American history and, along the way, enjoyed a journey through a beautiful and compelling setting. The characters are vivid and fully fleshed out, the three women in particular, and they created in me a strong empathy for them. I haven’t yet read the first book, The Widows, but I’ll be doing so forthwith and, in the meantime, I’m adding The Hollows to my list of best books read in 2020.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, February 2020.

Looking back on my review of book one in the Kinship series, The Widows, I see that I started off the last new year with this excellent series. Introducing Lily Ross, who takes over her husband’s job as sheriff of her Ohio county in the 1920s after his untimely murder, I devoured the first book as I got to know Lily and the people around her. I loved the scenery, the much harder yet simpler life of the early twentieth century, and I felt so deeply for Lily as she struggled to juggle the demands of her new job and her home life with small children that depend on her. While the first book focused on Lily and equally smart and strong coal mining union organizer/moonshiner Marvena Whitcomb, the next book, The Hollows gives us a deeper look into the struggles that Lily faces now that she’s been on the job for a few years–and she was elected by the public this time. But we now get to hear the inner workings of Lily’s best friend/jail mistress, Hildy, and her seemingly quiet life is far from peaceful. And this was a great way to start this new year with what has fast become my favorite historical series.

Sheriff Lily Ross is called out to Moonvale Tunnel railroad tracks, where an elderly woman has been struck by the freight train that travels through late at night. As Lily tracks down the truth as to the woman’s identity, where she came from, and why she was on the tracks in the dark, her investigation leads her to some ugly truths about the climate of hateful people in and around their town of Kinship. When Hildy is asked to make a sketch of the woman’s face to accompany the article that she’ll write asking for any information about the woman for the newspaper, she makes a connection with the woman. Hildy needs to get to the bottom of this just as much as Lily does.

Lily has to juggle the intricacies of a reelection campaign, being a working mother with crazy hours, along with finally dealing with her grief from the death of her husband. I really loved the new depths we get to see to Lily’s character. She’s really struggling with keeping it all together, and her professionalism at work is winning out at the expense of her home life. It was great to see that Lily and Marvena have a great friendship, and the past hurts between them involving Lily’s husband are behind them. Marvena definitely pushes this story forward with her feet in the seedier parts of the county, and she seems to know what’s going on everywhere.

Hildy has remained unattached since her fiance Roger died in the war some years before, but she is now engaged to the much older grocery store owner–whom her mother says Hildy should be grateful would even have her. Hildy feels invisible and only there to serve her stubborn, judgemental mother, and she certainly doesn’t want to marry Merle Douglas. But coal miner Tom Whitcomb makes her feel like the only woman on earth that matters, and a dalliance with him would surely be a mistake even if it was born out of love. Feeling left out since Lily is spending so much time with Marvena, she’s looking for meaning in her life, and her search leads her straight into danger.

I give The Hollows a five out of five. I enjoyed this second installment more than the first one. Lily is more comfortable in the role of sheriff, but adversity against women and their “rightful” place in society is something that she comes up against time and time again over the course of this series–all the women in this book do. Jess Montgomery’s writing is strong, flowing, and just draws you right in. As with the first book, corruption features prominently but with a new heaping of hate-fueled women. I never knew that their was a women’s section of the KKK, and I do know thanks to this book. I can’t wait to see what Sheriff Lily Ross investigates next and what part of history Jess Montgomery brings to life.

The Hollows continues the Kinship series by Jess Montgomery. I enjoyed the first book and thought this one was better (if that is possible). I am giving it five stars.

The Hollows, and the first book The Widows, is full of strong fully formed female characters, which I love in all of my fiction reading. The run the gamut from those you respect to those you despise. I really enjoy the character of Lily Ross and seeing her step into more confidence as a sheriff. So, strong female characters, check!

This book and the first one are extremely well research and include historical information that many readers may not have learned about before. The setting in Ohio during the 1920s, for example, might not be familiar but is so well written that you feel like you’re there. Or several reviewers I’ve read were shocked to learn that there was a women’s auxiliary of the KKK (I did learn about his in grad school but was equally shocked when I learned about it then). Even down to tiny details, this series feel fully lived in.

My only issue with the book, and the first one, is that the writing style was hard for me to get into. It did flow off the tongue (or brain, I suppose?) and made it more difficult for me to initially sink my teeth into. However, after several chapters the tone and language felt more natural. So I would recommend readers hang in there if you’re like me and initially didn’t get swept off you feet by the language. That being said it is lush and descriptive just a tad bit different than I’ve read before.

Over all, I would highly recommend this book for fans of historical fiction, especially those burnt out on WWII fiction.

Favorite Quotes:

Since her husband’s death, Lily has found that the absences of ordinary, predictable sounds— Daniel shaving in the washroom, Daniel humming, Daniel sitting on the edge of their bed to pull on his boots and then clunking his feet on the floor— are more noticeable than the sounds themselves ever were.

She’d also blushed then, redness rising up her chest and creeping over the top of her high-necked dress collar, as she realized for the first time in years… she was regarding a man and feeling surprisingly delicious tingles dance over her skin.

Marvena’s hand shakes as she points to something on the floor. A hooded cape, sewn from rough white cotton. The pointed hood has buttonholes to attach a face covering, with slits cut for eyes. Lily recoils, more startled by this than by the snake from moments ago.

Lily’s gaze hardens as she looks up at Abe, the tallest man she’s ever met, and so slender it’s hard to imagine he takes any joy in eating… his exaggerated Adam’s apple as still as a stone lodged in his throat, his chin and jawline shaved so smoothly as to suggest that even stubble is too scared to brush his face.

You’re sad, Lily. It’s been more’n a year, the length of time people give for mourning, but there’s no clock running on sorrow.


My Review:

I was quickly pulled into this quagmire of a tale by the mesmerizing storytelling quality, insightful observations, and perceptiveness of the writing. It was highly descriptive, swirling with atmosphere, and taut with raw emotions that were close to the surface as well as deeply buried – primarily frustration and grief. I was so deeply engaged I found myself holding tension in my body and clenching my teeth as I read. The main characters were deeply flawed women who were attempting to solve an intriguing murder in a small village that was, “inaccessible by automobile. Folks can get in and out only by train, mule, or foot,” all while struggling with their own personal issues and societal limitations of the 1920s. They were constantly on edge, physically and emotionally exhausted, hungry, anxious, frustrated and thwarted at every turn, yet striving to do their best and taking great personal risks. I cringed for them as I sucked down copious amounts of wine while they labored to untangle several complicated subplots to ultimately merge their diverse storylines. This intensely complex book was ingeniously and cunningly contrived and well worth the effort.

I will admit my ignorance, I had no idea there was such a group as the WKKK— the Women of the Ku Klux Klan. I should not have been surprised, but I was, and profoundly so. These not so secret groups were found all across the nation in the 1920s and were not just wives and daughters attending events with their families, but “an auxiliary women’s group, born of the KKK,” which had spun off from the suffrage movement and incorporated the tenets of prohibition and all the arrogance, antagonistic warfare, and bigotry of the KKK toward any person or group that was not white or Protestant. Yikes. Those women sound like the worst type of insufferable battleaxes. Gasp - I hope none of them would fall out of my own family tree, which in retrospect would not seem all that unlikely as there appears to be an overabundance of diseased branches. ;)

I enjoyed Montgomery's The Widows, (the first book in her series) so much that with that thought in the back of my mind I wondered if this second book would be as good as the first, and I am happy to report that it is. The Hollows turned out to be even better than The Widows, and an engrossing read. Set in 1926s, Lily Ross is still the sheriff of Kinship, Ohio (due to her husband's murder the previous year, covered in the first book) and is facing a contentious reelection, when she investigates a woman hit by a train by the Moonvale Tunnel, outside of town. When it turns out that the elderly woman was very likely pushed to her death, Lily's investigation starts unraveling long-buried secrets just as her campaign is heating up, the local mine is integrating, and a group of the Women's Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) is stirring up violence and trouble in the community.

I think what made this book so fascinating to me was the WKKK as I knew almost nothing about these women who used the suffrage movement to advance their recruitment, and used their political power, protest, and violent acts to promote traditional roles and values and preserve their white protestant rights and privileges. I ended up looking up additional information on the WKKK and its activities, prompted by this book and that is something that I love about historical fiction. Montgomery's afterward mentions that although she did not find direct evidence of the WKKK in the location the book is set, Ohio has a state with a strong presence of the group in the 1920s. I enjoyed getting back to the characters of Lily Ross and her friends Marvena and Hildy. Montgomery makes their stories compelling, and I appreciate both their strengths and the fact that they are not perfect--each struggles with the constraints put on them from the era but fights hard for her beliefs and for justice. The mystery in the book was good and kept me guessing--(although I did successfully predict some parts), and the tension built kept me not wanting to put it down until the end. If you like historical fiction and mysteries, strong female characters, and rural America in the 1920s, the Kinship series is excellent. Start with The Widows so that you get all of the back story of the characters and their relationships.

I want to call this “Southern Gothic” but it isn’t really Southern and only parts of it are gothic. But still, that feeling persists.

While this isn’t truly Southern, it also kind of is. It may be set in Ohio, but it’s in the southeast corner of the state, a place that has always been more a part of Appalachia than it is the Midwest. Far away from the big cities, which would have been Cincinnati and Cleveland at the time this story is set, locked in their eternal rivalry.

I’m from Cincinnati. There are other cities in the state, but Columbus wasn’t the big city it is today, although Toledo was probably bigger than it is now. And Cincinnati was more important than it is today. Times change. But that rivalry between Cincy and Cleveland will go on forever.

The Gothic looms over this story in the form of The Hollows Asylum in not too distant Athens. The place from which the elderly, female inmate/patient walks away at the beginning of this story, only to meet her death by falling into a remote railway tunnel ahead of an oncoming train.

It’s that death, whether by misadventure or murder, that drags Sheriff Lily Ross out into the night to see the body and begin her investigation into the true cause of the poor woman’s death – whoever she might be.

But Jane Does, even poor, wandering, confused and possibly senile Jane Does, deserve justice. No matter how many people want Sheriff Ross to let the unnamed dead rest in peace. Or perhaps especially because so many people don’t seem to want the woman’s death to be properly investigated.

And there are plenty of people who don’t believe that Sheriff Ross is the proper person to do the investigation – no matter what it might or might not uncover. Being sheriff is certainly not a suitable job for a woman – even if she “inherited” the job from her late husband.

But Lily can’t afford to listen to the naysayers. If she’s not willing to do her best for the least of her constituents then she has no business running for the job in her own right. And she is running for the job. It might not be anything she expected to be doing, but then she never expected to be a widow in her late 20s with an aging mother and two young children to take care of, either.

She does the best she can, no matter where, or how far it takes her. Even back into the long past. Or into the cells of the asylum – as an inmate.

Escape Rating A-: This wasn’t at all what I was expecting – and I mean that in the best way possible. I think I was expecting more of a historical mystery, with the emphasis on the mystery. Not that there isn’t a mystery in this story because there certainly is.

However, the book I actually got has a lot more depth than the typical historical mystery. This is more like historical fiction that has a mystery in it. There’s plenty of meaty history here, and unveiling the secrets of the past is really the heart of the story – not that plenty of dirty-deeds aren’t being done in its present.

While the individual characters in this story are fictional, there’s also a lot of excellent grounding in real history, beginning with the character of Sheriff Lily Ross. There really was a female sheriff in southeastern Ohio during this time period. Just as the main character of Girl Waits with Gun was also based on a surprising real-life example.

The deeper history that Lily uncovers, the secrets of the past and present in which this case is grounded, are also real, giving the events a resonance that they wouldn’t otherwise have. And I don’t just mean the dark roots of the case in the Underground Railroad, but also the surprising dark present of the WKKK, the Women’s Ku Klux Klan. That’s a bit of history I didn’t know and was perversely fascinated and totally disgusted by at the same time. It makes sense that it existed – unfortunately – but the popular image of the KKK is always men in white masks and robes. That their wives had a “ladies auxiliary” as so many organizations did, feels both right and chilling at the same time.

But this is also a work of fiction, and it’s a story that is wrapped around its strong female characters. Not just Lily Ross herself, but also her friends Hildy and Marvena as they each find their way after the tragic events of the previous book in this series, The Widows. While there was enough backstory provided that I was able to understand where each of these women was coming from without having read that story, I’m sure that there is plenty of nuance that I’m missing out on. So you can read The Hollows as a standalone but I’m about half-sorry that I did.

While this is Lily’s story, Marvena and Hildy each have their own character arcs and points of view in The Hollows, and they all follow different trajectories, as their lives have after those previous events. Lily has become Sheriff, and is currently in the midst of an election campaign to maintain her job. She’s still grieving for her late husband, still hurting on many levels, but has a job to do and two young children to raise. She’s also caught on the horns of a dilemma that women still face today when doing a so-called man’s job. She has to be hyper-competent while not crossing a line into imitating a man while fending off all of the many, many people who believe she can’t do her job or she shouldn’t do her job or she shouldn’t even want to do her job.

Marvena is a union organizer fighting her own battles both against the coal mine owners and the members of the union who are against integration and are raising the banner of the KKK. That part of her struggle feeds into the mystery in both the past and the present.

Then there’s Hildy, who I must admit drove me bonkers. Everyone thinks she needs protecting, that she really wants a woman’s traditional life and role. And that she should marry the local grocer because he’s her best chance. Hildy, on the other hand, is struggling against the way that everyone else sees her and the way that everyone else believes they know what’s best for her, including the lover that she can neither give up nor acknowledge. Her vacillating between the life she believes she desires and the person who makes her happy were a bit hard to take over the course of the entire story. But, and in the end it’s a very big but, she finally puts her courage to the sticking point and does what’s best for her, no matter how difficult the journey will ultimately be.

In conclusion, The Hollows was a story that took me up and swept me away. It intrigued me with its creepy mystery and gritty and all too real history. And it got me seriously invested in the lives of its strong female characters and the dilemmas they faced that were both very different and all too familiar.

And last but not least, I want to say that the atmosphere of the story reminds me quite a bit of Sharyn McCrumb’s Ballad series. And that’s excellent company to be in!

I have had my eye on Jess Montgomery’s debut novel, The Widow’s, for some time so when this one came up for review, I couldn’t pass on it even if it was the second in a series.

A number of readers said this book could be read as a standalone even if it is part of a series so I was eager to jump in and see if that was truly the case. I loved the ‘ghost story’ angle in the summary and couldn’t wait to start reading it!

Admittedly the midwest area and the 1920s aren’t really my go to location or eras for a historical mystery novel but I heard such great things about her debut that I was sure to love this one as well!

Summary
Ohio, 1926: For many years, the underground railroad track in Moonvale Tunnel has been used as a short cut through the Appalachian hills. When an elderly woman is killed walking along the tracks, the brakeman tells tales of seeing a ghostly female figure dressed all in white.

Newly elected Sheriff Lily Ross is called on to the case to dispel the myths, but Lily does not believe that an old woman would wander out of the hills onto the tracks. In a county where everyone knows everyone, how can someone have disappeared, when nobody knew they were missing? As ghost stories and rumors settle into the consciousness of Moonvale Hollow, Lily tries to search for any real clues to the woman’s identity.

With the help of her friend Marvena Whitcomb, Lily follows the woman’s trail to The Hollows—an asylum is northern Antioch County—and they begin to expose secrets long-hidden by time and the mountains.

Review
First of all I have to say, I love Lily as the sheriff! She has a great presence in this book and I love how her mind works to solve things. I also loved that the author based her character and mystery series in real life happenings in that area and a real life female sheriff. I thought it added a lot of historical interest to the narrative and characters so I applaud the author for this!

This book was well written and I thought the author showed her skills at story telling nicely throughout this mystery. The mystery itself was solid with some twists and turns to keep me guessing. I was constantly entertained and eager to see what happened next and how the crime would be solved.

I am also a huge fan of the gothic and I loved how this story incorporated little elements of the gothic to it’s mystery. In addition to the fun little elements of ghosts in this book, the historical research is top notch. As I said earlier, I loved reading about all the historical politics of the time as well as the setting of this area. While I am not a huge fan of small town post war, mid west America, as far as history is concerned, I am a fan of well written and researched history brought to life in a mystery such as this!

This was a book that I had no trouble breezing through in a few days and trying to decipher the mystery and motives was so fun and I thought the author did an amazing job keeping her audience engaged and excited about what was to come in the next chapter as well as the series overall. I would also like to go back and read her debut novel so that I can get a more detailed understanding of Lily as a main character. I loved her so much and enjoyed how witty and intelligent she was so I would like to go back and ‘meet her’ for the first time in The Widows!

Overall a solid historical mystery, this is an author to watch!

A perfect blend of mystery and historical fiction, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I am definitely looking for the first book in this series, but this book can stand alone. The characters, especially Sheriff Lily Ross, make for a suspenseful and well written novel, set in 1920s America. A little slow to start, well worth the read.

I loved THE WIDOWS, so I've been looking forward to Jess Montgomery's second installment in her KINSHIP series, and THE HOLLOWS did not disappoint. I love historical fiction, and the 1926 Appalachian setting is a welcome change. The fact that the characters of Sheriff Lily Ross and Marvena Whitcomb are inspired by two women from Ohio history makes it even more of a delight.

In THE WIDOWS, an elderly woman is found dead, shoeless and in a thin nightgown, apparently having been struck by a train after falling off the top of the train tunnel. Lily dives into the investigation, first to identify her and then to determine if it was suicide or murder, all while preparing for re-election. Her search leads her to an asylum called The Hollows.

In the course of her investigation, she turns up evidence of the Women's KKK, a part of history I wasn't aware of. She also addresses other issues prevalent at the time, including other issues of racism, prohibition, organizing of the mined, and the pushback of women holding any authority. Both Lily and her friend Hildy (with whom chapters alternate) get constant reminders of a woman's place (in the home). Lily flies in the face of convention, and Hildy struggles with the idea of marrying for security vs true love.

It's a quiet mystery - Montgomery's pacing is slow (in a good way) and steady, much like I imagine the drawl of the characters. This isn't a rollercoaster of a tale, despite a dramatic twist or two in the latter half of the book. This is an evocative story that will draw you in with its beautiful language and solid plot, its interesting, complicated characters, and its richly depicted setting.

Just a gorgeous book with an Appalachian setting I look forward to returning to again and engaging characters that I want to visit with again.

The Hollows is the 2nd book in the Kinship series by Jess Montgomery. I previously read the first book in this historical / mystery fiction series and enjoyed it a lot. I had to read the second one, and it definitely was equally as strong. The series revolves around Lily Ross, a woman who becomes the sheriff of a small Ohio county when her husband is murdered. In the last book, chapters alternate between Lily and Marvena, the former sheriff's girlfriend, who has become Lily's confidante and friend now. In this one, the chapters alternate between Lily and her almost-sister-in-law, Hildy, who has a connection to the latest crime.

Montgomery has merged two of my favorite genres together in this series. The setting takes place in the late 1920s, and I enjoy immersing myself in a culture from nearly one-hundred years ago. In the prologue, an elderly woman runs through a wooded area and arrives at The Hollows, where a train is about to pass by. A few chapters later, we learn the woman's body is found on the side of the tracks after being hit by the train. Was she murdered? An accidental fall? Or suicide? Lily is called to the scene, but no one knows anything about her. She came from a nearby county, but because the death was in Lily's territory, she's responsible. As the case unfolds, connections to her own friends and family emerge... all the while, Lily's fighting to keep her seat as sheriff in the official county election.

What I love about these books is how the author quickly transports you to history. As I read along in my head, I have a rhythm which is different from when I read a cozy mystery, a thriller, or contemporary fiction. My inner voice acclimates to the writing style, slow and methodical, descriptive and gentle, almost simple and casual. I mean this fully as a compliment, as that was what life would've been like in this time period. Yes, people had it difficult and suffered tremendously, but the rush to get to work or respond to a phone call or meet someone to chat wasn't like today. When Lily wants to discuss the case with Marvena, it's several hours journey by horse and carriage to get to her part of town. But I adore the entire series of events to get there.

The mystery is strong. I liked seeing the connections to the women's version of the KKK during this period. I had no idea it existed, nonetheless in the 1920s. Prohibition apparently made it re-surge (or become more widely known). As much as women were prejudiced against, there were strong voices, and some of them were just as evil and nasty as the men of their time (in terms of their hatred of African Americans, Native Americans, etc.). I liked seeing the balance of how women were portrayed because amidst the injustice, there were moments of power and strength. It wasn't just a sad story about lack of equal rights but one where readers could hear exactly what they tried to do to become more equal. This applies to any of the groups being victimized at the time, not just women. The author does an exquisite job of balancing all the necessary facts and truths of the period.

On a few occasions, I thought the book got a little too descriptive and/or left out some information I would've liked to know. As an example, the asylum was prominent for several chapters, but in a scene were someone researches patient care, it felt rushed. I didn't get to connect as much as I had in other areas of the book. All minor stuff, as it doesn't at all stop me from recommending this series. It's a great alternative to modern crime fiction or mysteries, and I definitely plan to keep this one in my rotation. Closer to 4.5 stars. I can't wait for the next book to come out.

Historical fiction is always fascinating in that it depicts events that 'could' have happened. The events in this book certainly ring true and are very believable. I was shocked to learn about the WKKK. I'd never heard of that group before!!

The characters are interesting, the writing flows well, and the story covers many topics. It was an enjoyable read!

The Hollows is a wonderful book that flows easily through the pages. The plot is intriguing and kept my interest from the first page. The main character Lily is the sheriff in a small community who is thrust into a murder mystery that unfolds to reveal a dark secret that had been well hidden and long forgotten, the families involved refusing to accept the truth of their past. I especially enjoyed the variety of characters, from strong, courageous and determined Lily, to her best friend the passive and quiet Hildy. The other characters each having their own strengths and weaknesses that create depth to the overall story. The mysterious death of the old woman is haunting and heartbreaking. As the story unfolds we learn little bits here and there that keep you enthralled. I appreciated the fact that there was no strong sexual content or violence, but there are some scenes involving racial tensions that could be disturbing to some readers, I believe Jess Montgomery did an excellent job of covering a very difficult topic and wrote in a way that shows the darkness and hatred, but without the gratuitous violence and sexual imagery.

“For some time, people and moments and events—living and dead, past and present—have been raveling free of one another, like pieces in a patch quilt whose connecting stitches have broken, the pieces all still there but floating separately, randomly, in her mind.”*

Lily Ross’s term as sheriff is nearly over and she’s up for re-election. The town is split, some support Lily, knowing what a great job she’s done after inheriting the role after her husband Daniel’s death, while others want a man in the position. Many of the people who support her opponent are cronies of his domineering, power-hungry wife. But Lily’s priority isn’t her campaign. She’s focused on determining if the death of an elderly woman who escaped an asylum was an accident or murder. But to solve the case, she may have to make a deal with the Devil.

At the heart of THE HOLLOWS is the theme of star-crossed lovers. There’s Hildy who is engaged to the much older owner of the grocery store, but is in love with a miner. The town’s teacher, Olive, fears that her interracial romance with a local man will make them the target of a hate group. Union supporter Marvena is keeping her relationship with a local man on the down-low. Lily has feelings for a friend of her deceased husband who works in the Bureau of Mines, but puts her own happiness on hold for the good of her family and town.

Thea, the elderly woman whose death is the core mystery of the novel, serves as a role model and source of inspiration for the women. She never settled and never let society hold her back from her desire to dance and live on her own terms. Lily investigates Thea’s past and present in order to piece together the events that led to Thea’s death.

Each of these women are strong, yet unique. Each has dreams and desires and responsibilities and regret. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Lily and her friends.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to the NetGalley and Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group, for providing an Advance Reader Copy.

*Please note that my review is based on uncorrected text.

The Hollows by Jess Montgomery is the second in her Kinship series. Lily Ross is the sheriff of Kinship, a small town in Bronwyn County. In 1926, a female sheriff could be controversial. Actually, there still aren't many women in the role of sheriff: "Of the 3,084 sheriffs in the United States, only 42 are women, says Fred Wilson, director of operations for the National Sheriffs’ Assn. And that number is nearly twice what it was just seven years ago, he says. "(Source)

In addition to the fact that Lily Ross is still grieving her husband's death, she has children, a demanding job, and an upcoming election to deal with as well. Called out in the middle of the night about an elderly woman who was hit by a train. Accident, suicide, or murder?

Determined to find out who the woman was and where she came from leads to a number of secrets past and present, events and connections that a number of people would prefer to ignore. Politics, racism, and sexism all play a role in the 1926 small town.

I had not read the first novel The Widows, but my interest and appreciation grew as I continued reading. Character-driven, yes. Good mystery, yes. Setting that feels genuine, yes. The Widows now on my list, yes.

It wasn't until I finished reading the novel, that it dawned on me that all of the important characters were women, which made me curious about the number of female sheriffs and made me think of the Bechtel test.


The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ BEK-dəl),[1] also known as the Bechdel–Wallace test,[2] is a measure of the representation of women in fiction. It asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added.[3]About half of all films meet these criteria, according to user-edited databases and the media industry press. Passing or failing the test is not necessarily indicative of how well women are represented in any specific work. Rather, the test is used as an indicator for the active presence of women in the entire field of film and other fiction, and to call attention to gender inequality in fiction. Media industry studies indicate that films that pass the test financially outperform those that do not.[citation needed]
The test is named after the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel in whose comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For the test first appeared in 1985. Bechdel credited the idea to her friend Liz Wallace and the writings of Virginia Woolf. After the test became more widely discussed in the 2000s, a number of variants and tests inspired by it emerged. (Source)
and this quote from Virginia Woolf in "A Room of One's Own":
All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. ... And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. ... They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman's life is that ...[5] Source (high light mine)

Two women inspired the author's characters. Maude Collins (the inspiration for Lily Ross) and Mary Harris Jones (although Marvena's character is less educated than "Mother Jones") --two women who broke barriers in law enforcement and activism.

I was working on this review when I saw Cathy's review yesterday, so I will skip the plot and point you to Cathy's blog. :)

NetGalley/St. Martin's Press
Historical Mystery. Jan. 14, 2020. Print length: 352 pages.

When I started reading this book, I had no idea what to expect. For me, I thought that The Hollows was an exceptional mystery story which had me captured from the start. Although it's not based on a true story, I found it to be very realistic and captivating. I enjoyed reading this book by Jess Montgomery and I look forward to reading more stories by her in the near future.#TheHollows#NetGalley


*Thank you to NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read an e-copy for free in exchange for my honest opinion/review.

The Widows, the first book in Jess Montgomery's Kinship historical mystery series, was one of my stand-out books in 2019, and it gives me so much pleasure to say that this second book, The Hollows, is now a stand-out book of 2020. I find the combination of Montgomery's evocative setting, her descriptive language, her story, and her marvelous characters to be well-nigh perfect.

Perhaps the setting speaks to me so strongly because I was raised in a small farm town that had a coal mine until the mine blew up on December 24, 1932, killing over fifty men. In reading the mine's history, I see many parallels to the mines around Montgomery's fictional Kinship, Ohio. The language used, the bred-in-the-bone lifestyle of "make do and mend" all add to the verisimilitude of The Hollows as well. As I read this slow-moving, rich story, I savored its Appalachian flavor and learned more about the attempts to unionize mine workers as well as something I'd never heard of before. Just what that is, I'll leave for you to discover.

The word "hollows" has many meanings in Montgomery's book. It's used in various terms locals use in relating to the landscape, but it also has a physical and emotional meaning-- especially to Hildy Cooper who feels like a failure when compared to her best friend, Sheriff Lily Ross. Hildy has found it impossible to break away from her domineering mother.

Lily Ross-- as well as her friends Marvena and Hildy-- show readers what was expected of women in the rather isolated mining communities of the 1920s, and these women also illustrate what can happen when women insist on breaking the molds others have forced them into. All three women can be mule stubborn, but when it comes to upholding the rule of the law for everyone, Lily joins the camp of Harry Bosch. Everybody counts, or nobody counts, and it's useless to threaten her.

And, oh, the secrets these three women uncover! Never, ever think that small towns and isolated areas are dull. Wherever humans are to be found, there are secrets, and secrets abound in Kinship and the surrounding area.

I loved this book. If you read and loved The Widows, rejoice, because The Hollows is, in many ways, even better. If you've read neither book, rejoice, because you have some excellent stories and characters ahead of you. Don't wait to get your hands on either of these books!