There is so much to love about this book. Dreams, wolf shape shifters, folklore, ravens, murder.

This is a romance about souls doomed to repeat a cycle until they can complete it.

The narrative is divided between a young woman, Miya, a shape shifter, Kai, and a Doctor, Mason. I think the different narrative voices between each character’s chapters would have worked better if they’d been written in first person. When I read them as first person, my enjoyment of the book increased dramatically. Unfortunately, as written in third person, I found it hard to connect with the characters and the pacing slow.

I received a free copy from Netgalley and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

Black Hollow is a town with a dark secret. For centuries, residents have foretold the return of the Dreamwalker—an ominous figure from local folklore said to lure young women into the woods and possess them.

First, I need to say how much I loved the descriptions in this novel. The forest and characters gave me haunting images in my mind. This is told from multiple character’s POV’s and it was written perfectly. I loved how their stories all ended up intertwining in the end. I’m excited to read the next book in this series. A 5 star recommended fantasy read! Thank you Netgallery for this arc!

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Well, where do I begin? It took me a little while to get into this book but once I did I couldn't put it down. I enjoyed the fact that you understand the characters and they're given back stories rather than just thrown into the book. I enjoy fantasy books but this one was taken to a whole new level with the folklore background. There are some parts that are a bit creepy but totally worth it. I can’t wait to read more by this author. Visit Black Hollow if you dare to find the willow.

The cover is beautiful and thats what caught my attention first. The story is well written and drew me in right away. Definitely a good read and very enjoyable.

Why is it always the books I just keep putting off that are so freaking good!!

I do not know what I was expecting.....but it wasn't this, but I am not mad. This book kept me so interested from the very beginning.

Giving us three POV's

Mason- a doctor who is running away from choices that led to the death of one of his patients. That brings him to the town of Black Hollow where he stumbles into the towns superstition and after a man is hit by a bus starts to think that maybe the superstitions have some truth to them.

Miya- A college girl in Black Hollow who's slipping into depression because after wanting to be a journalist finds out that the path isn't what she was hoping and loses all will to even try in school, but one day a wolf on the verge of death comes into her life and with one piece of jerky at a time she gains his trust

Kai- (my faves 🥰) is cursed with a monster inside him. Who makes Kai think he is the reason for the Murdered girls in Black Hollow when he wakes up next to their dead bodies with no knowledge to how they ended up that way.
He also is vulgar and I love it ♥️♥️

This book does give me mad The Raven Cycle vibes but it's definitely its own book....with a lot more talk of penis.

If I’m being honest, the beautiful cover is what initially drew me to this book. The synopsis also sounded interesting, and I was hoping to love it so I could buy a finished copy for my shelves. Unfortunately, I found the writing juvenile and the plot boring, I decided to DNF the book and not leave this review. Fast forward many months later, and I see the cover for the sequel. I really want to love this series. I tried the audiobook this time, but it still didn’t work for me. I’m officially DNFing at 45%.

I received a complimentary copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

The Hollow Gods
By: A. J. Vrana

REVIEW ☆☆☆
I wanted to like The Hollow Gods, but that just didn't happen. The story was intriguing at first, but I got bored with all the dream sequences (I'm not a fan of in the first place). The romantic aspect was kind of ridiculous instalove and totally unnecessary. I felt like this story was a bit all over the place with an odd and abrupt conclusion. Maybe I'm not the right audience for this one?

I will be doing a video on this book but for now, let me gush about the amount of enjoyment I had when reading this novel. We follow a two-point perspective following Kai and Miya who are likable characters from beginning to the end. This has the aspects of the folklore of a Dreamwalker turning an entire town into a nest of paranoia and violence. This book is a pageturner and everyone needs to read it!

I really struggled with this and decided to DNF. I just couldn’t get into it. I liked the writing style but everything felt overdone. Like it was trying too hard.

I loved the atmospheric beginning of this book, and the adaptation of the usual werewolf myth to an older, more nature-bound one. Unfortunately, I felt the story somewhat lost its way after the promising start, with the plot getting bogged down in symbolism and and lacking in pace. Given the nature of the antagonist and local legend, it was understandable that the plot relied on a lot of time in dreams and visions, but I found these got very repetitive and could have been conveyed better and with a lot more efficiency. Towards the end, the plot picked up again, once Kai and Miya's paths converged, and I definitely felt the chemistry of the romance. I didn't feel like Mason's POV added a lot to the story, and his sections often felt at odds with the tone and theme of the others.

Finally a book which can weave fairytales with nightmares.
I just wanted...more.
I felt like the book was very loose on the plot and could have been more direct and defined.
I felt like the characters were well defined and were somewhat relatable as outcasts.

I received this and as an eARC to read for free in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for giving me access.

This story was not at all what I thought it was going to be and I loved it! It was dark with some hilarious, sarcastic lines sprinkled throughout.

Vrana kept me intrigued through out the whole book and the multiple POVs were written wonderfully. I am definitely looking forward to the next book in the series!

The Hollow Gods

[Blurb goes here]

I really wanted to like this book, since the story is really good, unfortunately the writing style makes the story drag at snail pace. I found myself unable to read it in two seatings, like I usually do. I ended up reading other books while I finished this one, which is not a good sign.

The story is unique at blending different genres. The characters are flawed, which I really liked, but since those flaws seem irrelevant to their actions and the story, they might as well have been perfect. There's one character that feels completely irrelevant to the story, he's there, he discovers a few things, he has recurring dreams about the antagonist, but does nothing to ad to the story, except maybe tie in some loose ends.

As I said, I loved the story as a whole. Because it's not only an interesting idea, it's an original one. That's the reason behind the fours stars.

The Hollow Gods is creepy and atmospheric; full of folklore and dream sequences, it keeps you twisting and turning until the end, never quite sure what's going on. That's clearly what the author was going for and yet it is also one of the reasons I struggled to enjoy the novel. Because the aspects that I was really interested in, like the mass hysteria of the villagers and the motivations behind the townsfolk murdering there own were glossed over in favour of surreal dream sequences and reincarnation and a million over paranormal aspects that felt clunky and over-done.

What Vrana does well is built the initial atmosphere around the novel. Whilst the three perspectives didn't always work for me, often pulling me out of a narrative thread when things were getting interesting, I can see why they were used. Kai, Miya and Mason are all from very different backgrounds and so relate to the folklore differently; I particularly liked Mason's perspective as he brought an outsider's skepticism to the mix. I was fascinated by the way Vrana began to merge fantasy and science, in the diagnosis of Capgras Syndrome of the townsfolk who have killed their own daughters in the belief that the Dreamwalker has replaced them with imposters and how Mason uses science to try to track down Kai. It added a really solid and dark note to the spiraling supernatural events. If taken further and focused more on, it would likely have propelled this into a four star novel.

Unfortunately, these aspects were minimised in favour of the supernatural and dream aspects and I found those far less compelling. In honesty, the dream sequences, and the entire conclusion to the novel is entirely dependent on them which felt like a cop-out. And there was far too much going on; possession, evil spirits, past lives, werewolves, dreams and alternate realities... Vrana would have been better off taking at least half of the superfluous elements out and closely focusing on one or two. That way there would have been a strong link between the reality and the supernatural, rather than the whole feeling overly convoluted and confusing. I'd have loved to see more on the psychological level, focusing in on the latest murder victims parents more closely and tying that to the overlying narrative for instance. It would have grounded the novel, which is something it sorely needed.

I have to admit, I also really didn't appreciate the insta-love between Kai and Miya. In fact, the entire romance sub-plot could have been removed and the book would have been ten times better for it. They'd met what, twice perhaps, because Miya decides to follow the creepy wolf dude to his ramshackle hut in the woods. In a normal area that would be weird as hell, but when you take in the context, that the entire village are terrified of the Dreamwalker running off with young females and seem to count someone missing if they haven't been seen in two hours, it's ridiculous. And then you have the additional context that said locals have a nasty habit of killing the girls when/if they return. There is no good reason for Miya to decide to go and shack up with the wolf-dude, and hundreds not to. Yes, I get that there are deeper aspects to their relationship, but it just really didn't work for me and the cringe-worthy flirting did my nut in.

Finally, whilst the majority of the novel is really slow the ending is like someone decided to hit the accelerator and it rushes through the final conclusion, leaving your head spinning and feeling rather unfulfilled. It didn't help that this rushed conclusion was largely done through the dream sequences, which we've already noted I found confusing and unnecessarily over-done. In rushing the ending, there are key elements that felt more like they'd been shoe-horned in rather than an eventual reveal of a logical conclusion. Like the author had cheated somehow and robbed me of a satisfying ending in the process.

So, not for me. Whilst I felt Vrana built up the atmosphere well and I was interested in the elements relating to the real world, the heavy reliance on dream sequences, the insta-love, the rushed conclusion and the convoluted tangle of supernatural elements that just never really went anywhere didn't work for me. To my mind, the novel needed to be more grounded and whilst Vrana set the scene for that with the village hysteria and scientific rationale, she didn't go anywhere with it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free review copy of this title.

Great from the start.
If you like Wolves, Ravens, crazy townsfolk possessed and mob like, folklore, dreamwalkers, unbelievable truths, secrets of small towns, forests. This will be right up your alley. I enjoyed every bit of this one.
I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I don't get why this book has so many positive ratings. It was rather dull and I was barely motivated to keep going. Instalove should be a thing of the past btw, but that's what you get if the characters boring and cringy. The writing felt clumsy, and the mystery was not intriguing, but boring

Black Hollow is a creepy town with a dark secret.

Generations before, a girl was taken by The Dreamwalker and her Wolf familiars. When the girl was returned, she was changed. So they burned her at the stake. To save her.

Hundreds of years later and The Dreamwalker and her Wolves are still feared. Girls are regularly taken, returned, and killed by the people nearest to them. This usually sparks a wolf cull.

When struggling student Miya finds a missing girl stumbling out from the forest and gets her the help she needs, she is left feeling good for the first time in ages, until history starts to repeat itself. Often drawn to the forest it’s not long before Miya meets Kai.

Kai is a young man who lives alone in the forest. But he is being haunted by a malevolent force and when he wakes up next to the remains of a young girls body in the middle of the forest, he wonders what part he played in her death. He remembers running to save her after hearing her screams, but he didn’t get there on time. He never gets there on time.

Mason is an oncologist who has lost his first patient and blames himself. Fleeing his home and grief he finds himself in Black Hollow and absolutely astounded by the town’s mass hysteria and belief in The Dreamwalker as more than just a fairy tale to scare children into behaving. He decides to investigate matters himself and prove the town wrong.

Overall I really enjoyed this book! I enjoyed the slow build to the story because character development and the relationships between them were focused on well. The chapters are also short, keeping the pace up. The characters are well developed, with interesting backstories to all of them. This is shared in a way which is relevant to the story as a whole which is great.

I enjoyed the way the residents of Black Hollow have such a significant shared identity and the fact that this wasn’t just accepted. Because Mason is an outsider, he wasn’t just ‘oh, cool, ok then’, he was more ‘what? You’re all crazy!’ That being said Miya is almost pathological in her cool acceptance of Kai’s other side. This was a bit annoying. It felt a bit too Bella and Edward (if you know, you know).

I really liked the pace when all the action was going on and the journey on the other side. I would have liked more time spent here, I really enjoyed the contrast in the feel and tone of battle Miya was fighting vs the one Kai, Mason and Ama were fighting.

What let this book down for me was the ending. (WARNING: Potential spoilers coming) It felt like it was all go and we were in the middle of this almighty battle then the scene just cut and we are somewhere else, and the characters are all somewhere else and its hours, or potentially days later. I want to know where Ama has gone since the scene before and I want to know what happened between Mason seeing what he saw and then waking up in the hospital.

I have had a look on Goodreads, it seems The Hollow Gods is part one of a Duology and I have to wait until the middle of next year for the second half, which is irritating because I want it now (So if the author sees this and feels like sending me an ARC copy I’d be extremely happy with that).

I struggled a bit to decide if this book was a three or four-star rating. Ultimately I needed more from the ending for this to hit my four-star requirement. However, if the reason for the vagueness around the end of this book is due to the content of the second book, I will most likely revise my rating.

Thanks to NetGalley, I received an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this very much! The characters, the actions and even the plot itself! Very inspiring for my own book too!

I was given this book by netgalley as an arc in exchange for my honest opinion. I wanted desperately to like this book and unfortunately it fell very flat for me. While the synopsis sounded amazing I just couldn't get into it and struggled to finish.

this had a great spooky atmosphere and it kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to the end. I liked the characters and the story itself. I hope there is more in the series.