What the heck did I just read?! I definitely should not have stayed up so late reading this as it gave me nightmares, but in a good way, if that makes any sense at all. What a creative story, my goodness. I really enjoyed it, so thank you to everyone for the advanced copy.

I really enjoyed this book! I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I read the description but it was surprisingly good. It was just a little bit spooky in that way that you can’t stop thinking about it but it doesn’t make you scared to go to sleep at night.

Thank you so much Netgalley for the early release of The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher. This book has made it to my favorite horror books list. I read a few reviews before I read this book and many people said it scared them or was creepy. I started it and to me it wasn't very creepy, but the writing was good so I kept reading. When Kara and Simon investigate the whole in the upstairs drywall and the bunker beyond, I thought that it was getting really interesting. Once they see what was inside though reminded me of a combination between C.S. Lewis and Clive Barker. You take something magical and new and pretty and pull a totally creepy, disturbing, gooseflesh inducing terror to it. I started at 37% last night about 11pm, by 2 am I was still reading and only at 60%. I was afraid to put the book down and afraid to keep reading. I got up this morning and went right back to the book. I had to pause a few times to breathe and remember that the book was not real. I loved this book and am so glad that I read it. It has been awhile since I just plowed through a book in a couple days.

Things I am now scared of because of this book: Holes. John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. Humming. Willow trees. Always count on coming out of a T. Kingfisher novel with new irrational fears y’all.

This is a fun twist on a) the short story The Willows, if you know it, and b) the portal fantasy. The focus here is more on the atmospheric horror, and I love it - what if you found a place that bought you portals to other worlds, but they were hunting grounds? The characters are fun and provide some much needed levity at times. I also really like the trope of our main finding someone else’s writing that delves more into the world beyond their own experience. (Or at least, it seems to be a pattern with her two books with Saga so far.) I took this in small doses at first because of the sense of creeping horror, but like with The Twisted Ones, I hit a point where I just had to keep going and know WHAT THE FUCK. Our mains don’t come out unscathed, especially with our main’s knee - she knows chronic pain well, and you can tell by the way she writes. It’s a great twist on the portal fantasy trend as of late, and I can highly recommend it. It’s not as bone deep terrifying as, say, the Twisted Ones, but it’ll still leave you unsettled. In my top ten for the year.

Oh also - the cat lives.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for a copy of this book to review.

The Hollow Places
by T. Kingfisher

What a unique and exciting novel. I really enjoyed this author's previous novel “ The Twisted Ones” but The Hollow Places blew my mind!

The story revolves around Kara,a woman, recently divorced, who goes to stay with her Uncle Earl in his “Wonder Museum” and Simon the eccentric barista next door. The Wonder Museum contains an eclectic mix of artifacts, gimmicks and old taxidermy.

Kara loves the Wonder Museum and has spent years of her youth in the unusual building. When Uncle Earl needs knee surgery, Kara offers to take over the museum while he is in the hospital thinking what could possibly go wrong?

This is the point in the novel where the 'Lovecraft' style of horror fiction begins, a hole in the wall behind one of the old artifacts leads Kara and Simon to another.....dimension that holds mysteries and terror beyond their wildest imaginations.

This is a wonderful book. I didn't find it scary but terribly interesting and would highly recommend it, 5 stars.

When Kara goes to work in her uncle’s museum of oddities, she is shocked to find a portal to another dimension(?). She steps into it with reminiscent thoughts of the Narnia books. What she finds is far more terrifying.

If you are looking for a book to creep you the freak out, here it is. I am not easily spooked, but this book was very creepy. I think I had goosebumps at certain parts. It was difficult for me to imagine the imagery at times and I would have loved an illustrative guide. I understand some readers like to use their imagination, but not me. I’d love to see a movie of this come out so I can put some visuals in my brain. I love spooky stories that have more to them then spook. This book had some witty great characters, as well as good humor. Exactly what I like to see in a horror book.

The Hollow Places comes out 10/6.

“If there’s a way into hell, someone will always find it.”

I have always wanted to travel through a portal to another world, but not anymore!! If you want to keep that fantasy alive then don't read this book! The description of a bad news Narnia is the perfect way to describe this tale. Filled with spooky characters and setting The Hollow Places transports you to a world you could only imagine in your nightmares. It is the perfect story for you if you want to not sleep ever again and constantly search your house for holes in the wall.

This book has some trigger warnings for body horror. This book also reminds me a lot of Lovecraft in that it is horror that will crawl under your skin it's a pretty good book I really like the setting in the visualization.basically you have a woman who is going to go through divorce so she decides to move back home to a weird museum where she finds a door of some sort to another dimension.

REVIEW: The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher, 4/5. Thank you so much, @Netgalley and @SagaPress for the digital review copy. This was the perfect entry into my fall #spookyreads and if you want something transformative, hauntingly normal, and totally mind-numbingly overwhelmingly intense...you have to check out The Hollow Places.

The premise is simple - Kara, a mid-30s recent divorcee, moves in with her beloved, eccentric Uncle Earl who owns ‘The Wonder Museum’, a strange roadside attraction filled with weird taxidermy and strange paranormal artifacts. When he needs to take a few days off for a knee surgery Kara, belovedly called ‘Carrot’ by those who love her, takes over the shop. However, a hole mysteriously appears and when she calls in Simon, the barista next door, they find a bunker that leads them to a strange, alien landscape where dozens of worlds seem to combine and parallel universes abound. When they go to explore, they are confronted with the horror of the place...and...well...I can’t ruin the rest!

I *love* horror novels like this that are so relatable. The way Kara and Simon react to the alien world, how mundane her divorce is treated in comparison, and the way she deals with the worlds she is confronted with is so, well, human. Kara doesn’t pretend to be an intrepid explorer or fearless hero - like any one confronted with other realities she is confused, intrigued, curious, terrified, and horribly unsure. The reality of our characters, especially Kara and Simon, make the horror that surrounds them all the more realistic and all the more terrifying.

Not to mention, like many horror greats before her, especially cosmic horror juggernauts, Kingfisher is able to craft a terrifying monster-filled world that is all about the horror of the unseen rather than describing a super creepy monster. The monsters live in-between the skin of the world and they seem purposeless in their terror and destruction. The unknown motives of the creatures and the willows makes these ‘bad guys’, well, unfathomably bad. You can’t destroy something with no known intentions, much less without weapons.

Filled with relatable characters, moments of humor through the darkness, intriguing monster descriptions, and an entire world built just behind a hole in the wall, The Hollow Places is a can’t miss this fall.

This book was not my cup of tea.

First, I mistook this book as a science fiction initially. (Personally not a fan of science fiction)

Second, I felt like there was not enough horror or the suspense. There were moments of horror ,but they were short.

Third, I didn't relate with the main character, Kara, or the minor characters!

...... Please read other reviews. This may be the perfect book for you!

Thrilling story of a woman looking to start her life over after divorce. She moves in with her uncle and along with the barista at the cafe next door discovered an alternate universe. A lot of wonderful descriptions of creatures from another world. A definite must read!

Inspired by Algernon Blackwood’s Willows and easily marketed as dark version of Narnia for adults, Kingfisher’s follow up to the most excellent folk terror Twisted Ones doesn’t disappoint. Though it isn’t quite as good, it’s pretty freaking close, certainly no sophomore slump. The story itself is smaller and more contained with only three main characters, but what the two of them discover hiding behind the wall of the third’s place of business is pretty epic. So to begin at the beginning, Kara, a 34 year old graphic designer of no renown, gets divorced and with no means of financial solvency has to stay at her uncle’s. But what an uncle it is, what a character Uncle Earl is, a man who believes in a spectacular varied assortment of things, collects what he can of the mysterious world around him and then displays it in his museum, which is pretty much every road side attraction thrown in together and lovingly (and imaginatively) curated. Kara, affectionately nicknamed Carrot by her uncle, has only positive memories associated with the museum and has no qualms about staying in the back of it, even starts an immense project of cataloguing Earl’s inventory. But then she is left alone to mind the shop for week or two and immediately stumbles upon a portal to another world. A terrifying world of hungry willows. That’s something of an oversimplification of the awe and terror of the epic alien flora and fauna of the place, but you get the idea. And now it’s up to her and a friendly barista from a coffeeshop net to her to figure out how to prevent that world from spilling into this one. (Barista, spills, on man, I’m hilarious). But actually barista is a really fun character, he kind of reads like a gay Tim Burton character with the past as variegated as his outfits and, surprisingly, strikingly so and all to the author’s credit, he isn’t at all annoying. In fact, the two make a very good team, all things considered. And the rest…you gotta read the book to find out. And why wouldn’t you, really. The narrative is suffused with Kingfisher’s trademarked friendly quirky humorous warmth, which is the best version of southerness you can find in fiction. The rest often tends to veer toward the countryfried slowness and racism and such. But despite the overall cute factor, make no mistake, this is a proper entry into the genre of all things horrific, the author aims to terrifies you and mostly succeeds, she just throws in cuteness and jokes to balance things out. And yes, I figured out the main plot ingredient and you probably will too, it’s kind of a gimme, but it doesn’t really alter the fact that it’s an exhilarating ride into the darkness with a dying flashlight. It’s a fun book and there are no easy answers and the author doesn’t do her readers the discourtesy of incongruously wrapping it all up neatly with happy bow at the end, so it’s all the more effective. Which is all to say I enjoy this book very much. And fans of dark literary scary stories probably would also. I’m surprised none of the inevitable comparisons to other popular works don’t mention Jeff VanderMeer’s excellent Southern Reach trilogy and the basis for the movie Annihilation. Instead the book leans really heavily on Narnia comparisons and there isn’t even a wardrobe to be found. But at any rate, this was a really good read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

What a wild ride of a book! The Hollow Places was everything I hoped it would be and more. I was completely taken in and didn't want to stop reading.

Kara is newly divorced and moves in with her uncle Earl. Earl runs a wonder shop of sorts and Kara now helps him run it. When Earl is out getting his knee surgeries, it's up to Kara alone to run it. She stumbles upon a hole in the wall which leads to a strange concrete bunker of sorts and a big door. What lies beyond that door is absolute horror. Kara and her friend Simon explore this strange world together, only to come face to face with monsters, otherworldly creatures and warnings carved into walls of another bunker they discovered. They soon learn the monsters can hear their thoughts and the more fear they feel, the closer the monsters get.

The Hollow Places is a book that will stick with me for a long time. I adored Kara and Simon as characters. This book is dark, gory, scary and darkly funny at times; which is everything I love in a horror book. Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, The Hollow Places is an absolute thrill-ride of a book and I highly recommend it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for this ARC.

Excellent book! It kept me in edge from page one. I'm looking g forward to reading more of this author's work. Highly recommended.

Freshly divorced Kara at age thirty four feels overwhelmed ... finding it unlikely that she can support herself as a part-time freelance graphic designer ... and dreading the thought of moving back in with her parents ... especially having to deal with her overbearing mother. Suddenly the phone rings ... her beloved Uncle Earl is offering her a life line ... why not move to Hog Chapel, North Carolina and help him with his Museum and live in the back room. The full title of his museum is: Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities and Taxidermy. It is filled with various odd ball elements from around the world ... in other words, it is wall-to-wall weird shit. Uncle Earl believes in many things .... Jesus, Moses, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, and even the Aliens that landed at Roswell. He likes everyone he's ever met. Kara, or "Carrot" , a name he has called her since she was two years old, willingly inserts herself into this new world. After closing hours, Kara checks out the museum looking for stragglers,, instead she discovers a hole in the drywall in a back wall. She has no idea how to repair this jagged and irregular opening. She ventures next store to the Black Hen, a coffee house run by the barista, Simon. Simon dresses like a thrift store Mad Hatter, with finger-less gloves and an assortment of strange hats ... he is unchanged since she last saw him five years ago. He assures her that he has the tools and knowledge to help.
The dynamic duo embark on their fix-it operation, only to be derailed when they discover that the hole does not connect to just a crawl space, but a full size hallway. They soon realize.... "We.re in a hallway that can't exist with a great locked door at the end. Do you want to get eaten by monsters, or open a portal to hell or whatever?"
And, just like that, the journey has begun. Will they be eaten by "brain goblins" or have they fallen into a horror movie
........In true Lovecraftian fashion, Kara and Simon do not run from the cosmically unknown nightmares ... but, plunge forward to explore and probe deeper into the unknown terror.
Kingfisher expertly weaves into existence a strange world, somewhat mirroring C.S. Lewis' the "Wood between the Worlds" ... the nexus point outside the Narnia worlds. This portal exists to not only different worlds , but alternate realities. This alien world is inhabited by dense willows that harbor strange, unseen alien forces that can hear your thoughts and seek to capture you for the purposes of examining you like a microbe under a slide ... and then changing and unraveling your mind and body. Kingfisher establishes a background of pervasive dread and escalating tension .... and, then, expertly relieves the tension by sprinkling in a banter of tongue In cheek humor. And, at times there are illusions to the tropes of our beloved horror movies.
Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery / Sage Press for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review. ( at readers remains.com )

Absolutely BONE-CHILLING and yet compulsively readable! Through a frightening retelling of Lovecraft's <i> The Willows </i> that reads like a combination between <i> Annihilation </i> and Kingfisher's previous novel, <i> The Twisted Ones </i> T. Kingfisher has crafted another masterful horror novel that has instilled in me a deep fear of the entire state of North Carolina.

Our recently divorced protagonist, Kara, has moved into her Uncle's rural curios shop (The Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities and Taxidermy!), and sleeps and works amid stuffed river otters, bears, and albino raccoons. Her life is as normal as it ever gets in the Glory to God Museum until she stumbles through a hole in the wall with her friend Simon and discovers a horrifying new world.

Creepy, dark, and often quite gory, this novel left some images stamped into my brain that I wish I could wash out with bleach. But I somehow still mean that in a good way? Part of crafting a good horror novel, in my opinion, is the building of suspense leading up to certain moments that whack you around the head like a baseball bat. Kingfisher is master of seeding these little moments of tension and discomfort, just left of normal to make shivers run up your spine until you hit the parts that REALLY make you want to jump out of your skin.

Another thing I appreciate about Kingfisher's style of horror--her protagonists are refreshingly realistic, Kara talks and acts exactly like I'd expect a real person to talk and act in her situation. Brave, but without delusions of heroism, she is simply a woman trying to survive and maybe do a little good while cracking jokes about fanfic. Speaking of which, I also enjoyed the novel's humor--it kept the tone of the book from getting too relentlessly dark.

My one complaint with this book was how similar it felt to <i> The Twisted Ones </i>. Not only was the original setting the same, but the two main characters felt tone-wise a LOT like the two main characters of that novel. I can't complaint too much, though, because if there's anything I've learned about Kingfisher its that while she likes to stick to what she knows, she's awful good at it.

House of Leaves meets The Magicians meets Gravity Falls. This Lovecraftian horror was riveting and I loved it. Kara, or Carrot, as she is lovingly called by her Uncle Earl, goes to live with her uncle after her divorce. She helps run his shop of curiosities and encounters otherworldly horrors she could never have imagined. I could not put this down. The faceless, nameless horror was well crafted and the danger so real. The characters became people I wanted to meet, but I also wanted to stay as far away as possible. Get a copy in October when it comes out—perfect month for reading this chilling tale.

<i>Review copy provided by NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review<i>

T. Kingfisher continues to delight with a horror entry that kept me from reading into the wee hours of the night... mainly because I was afraid a portal to a creepy, nightmare dimension would open up in my bedroom and let the roots in.
I first came across T. Kingfisher's books following a twitter suggestion from author Angela Boord (whose knockout novel Fortune's Fool is well worth your time) and proceeded to tear through Swordheart and Paladin's Grace at an embarrassingly swift pace. Both are lovely studies in romantic fantasy and laugh-out-loud funny, so I was not sure what to expect from a horror novel by the same author.

To be honest, I am a little mad at myself for doubting Kingfisher at all. The Hollow Places is a grab you by the collar rollercoaster of a read. Engaging, terrifying, and just as laugh-out-loud funny as her romance entries have proven to be. Moments of suspense are balanced with a necessary levity and humor that readers of Kingfisher have come to expect, and that readers of horror (or maybe just me as I am a wimp) need in order to sleep soundly at night.

Also, as a fellow North Carolinian, it was a treat to see small town NC represented in a contemporary SFF novel. That the author lives roughly an hour away from where I do made it all the more enjoyable to see how she portrayed our local area and the wonderful characters populating the pine woods and sandhills of central North Carolina.

~ On that note, dear Ms. Kingfisher, please do not be alarmed when a harried woman wearing a four month old baby wanders into your local coffee shop and stares at you awkwardly over her latte. It's just that I'm a fan and my formative years being raised in Los Angeles where sighting celebrities was a regular occurrence won't allow me to come bother you. Pay no attention to the fangirl in the corner ~

Now, I don't often read horror, perhaps once every 3-4 years do I dip a toe into that pool. It is certainly not with enough frequency to where I can be any sort of authority on literary nightmare fodder. It is usually when my brain is tired of wizards, dragons, plucky farm boys or determined YA heroines that I decide sleep isn't worth my time and I'd rather stay up all night with the flashlight app on my phone keeping the dark corners well illuminated. This is not to say I don't enjoy horror - for example, House of Leaves ranks as one of the best books I have ever read, while also holding a unique position on top of the list of Books I Will Never Read Again...

So it must be said: I am beyond glad I decided to spend that scant bit of horror energy on The Hollow Places. It is a fresh yet familiar take on portal fantasy and alternate realms. As always, Kingfisher writes with fluid, entertaining prose. Her characters are well-rounded, realistic and, in the case of The Hollow Places, fully aware of the tropes they represent and wholly reject.

A mixture of the Scream films and Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, Hollow Places unfolds with the pace of a blockbuster summer movie - and considering the nationwide closure of movie theaters, this was an exceedingly welcome diversion from the repetitive nature of Sheltering in Place.

The main character who I now think of as Carot seemed way younger than her years. This is just not for me. I tried to like it but at 10% in it's just not grabbing my interest at all.

The bunkers, the willows, the cones...there are so many images in this novel that will stick with you from night to night and long after you finish. I loved Kara's sense of humor, her sidekick Simon, and her intrepid cat, Beau.

Especially during this pandemic, it's wonderful to escape into another world (and doubly satisfying when our narrator also escapes into another world)...and come back. Kara is broken and alone after her divorce, with nowhere else to turn but her Uncle Earl and his crazy museum of weird things. She's reluctant but she has few options when she takes the small apartment attached to the museum.

Like many of us stuck at home with few options for work, for meeting friends, for continuing our normal daily lives, Kara catalogs incoming donated items, greets occasional tourists and drinks coffee. Her foray into the otherworld, which at first seems exciting, quickly reveals itself to be a terrible danger, one that follows her home.

She is grateful to be back home - much like we are when we come back from our trips to the grocery store? Ha! But more than that, she becomes a hero in her own story, saving her own life and that of others because she *doesn't* run away even though she threatens to.

This book was NOT written for the pandemic, because of it, or at any time during it but it has a remarkable resonance for those of us living it. Whether it's a rare trip to see a friend or the virus itself, everything in our lives is fraught with an element of danger. We want to triumph, we want to live and we want our lives back. Watching Kara do that makes us hopeful in a strange fictional sort of way.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.