This horror/thriller story follows multiple residents of Parmenter Road on Halloween night, 1984. In order to distract them from the problems in their lives coming to a head tonight, they head out to enjoy the holiday festivities. Mixed in with the children of the neighborhood are other children dressed in vintage costumes and makeup. These eerie kids are terrified of someone they call The Cunning Man and ask other children to keep them safe from him as he hunts them down.

I loved the atmosphere of this read and it really captures that later-autumn feeling. Halloween is so integral to the plot, setting, and characters that it really permeated the whole story. While obviously you can read Halloween books all year round, it is a tiny bummer that this wasn't able to be published closer to actual Halloween. We get so many great autumnal details for all of the senses that I wished I had a PSL while reading. The beginning of the story leaned toward the more family-friendly fall vibes but as night falls and we start to be introduced to The Cunning Man, these same vibes become increasingly sinister.  

The horror elements were fantastic and leaned into the creepy kid trope in a really fun way. There's a bit of body horror and gore, but for the most part creepy kids ruled the day. I've never heard of The Cunning Man before and a quick google didn't come up with him being a commonly known entity and it did feel like a fresh take on this type of set up. The first half had a lot of interpersonal conflict while these families we're following address some pretty significant situations in their lives. The second half is where we get into more of the horror and ramps up quickly and we get into the more thriller-y parts. I loved the supernatural horror elements and how they were introduced to the reader really seamlessly through the plot points. 

I overall enjoyed the pacing, but did find this a bit slow in the beginning. For the first 1/3, the pacing wasn't at the point that was driving me to turn the pages. Instead, it read more like a domestic drama. The pacing does pick up over the course of the story and I found myself much more engaged by the halfway mark. It seemed like all the layers of this story - the interpersonal conflicts, the horror, etc - were all a bit of a slower burn. Also, while we are getting all the POVs set up, there was a lot of hopping around and following these characters so we can gather basic information which, again, made the very beginning feel slower. 

I didn't love the multi-POV element as much as I normally do and it is because I had a bit of a hard time differentiating the different characters. I didn't feel like the character voices or characterization details were significant enough for me. There were multiple times I had to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to remember who we were following. I do think the choices Golden made about who should be the POV choices were really smart. I think all of the POVs were interesting in their own way and added a layer to the story. I also enjoyed how these POV choices enabled us to bounce around the neighborhood to all the various festivities which was fun to see.  

Overall, this was a great atmospheric Halloween read with fantastic horror elements. I do wish we had gotten to the meat of the story a little more quickly.

TW/CW: infidelity, domestic violence, homophobia, child abuse

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC

Expected publication date is January 24, 2023

This story is so creepy and nostalgic for me. Set in 1984, it's right around the time I would've been trick or treating and there's just enough 80s facts thrown in to draw me in. At the start, it's just your typical neighborhood with gossip about each other, setting up their decorations and ramping up to the big night. But these creepy kids in old style costumes keep popping in and out of the story and the chills and creepy vibe kept building until that satisfyingly gory and terrifying end. I loved this book!
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I feel this was just a very generic Halloween horror novel, with that being said, that means I enjoyed it! Halloween horror is one of those niches I love, no matter how played out they are. I do think it lacked in the creepy factor for me, but it was still a good time.

I've read this book along with the audiobook (that I've also reviewed). It was a pretty good book, definitely one for all the horror and Halloween lovers out there. I'm nicely surprised by this since I had read and disliked another book by this author in the past. This is an improvement for sure.

It's Halloween night in Coventry, Massachusetts in 1984 when evil descends on Paramenter Road. The neighbors are gearing up for the Haunted Woods created by one of the neighbors and a large Halloween party at another neighbor's home. Everything is going as planned and excitement is in the air; however, all is not as it seems when some unusual trick-or-treaters arrive in the neighborhood. Who will survive this Halloween night as secrets are revealed and residents begin dying?
This was a really fun book. I enjoyed all of the 80's era nostalgia. I liked concept of the book and liked how the horror was often found with the neighbors themselves long before The Cunning Man and the mysterious children showed up on Paramenter Road. I would liked to have had more backstory about The Cunning Man and his purpose (maybe a sequel?). While I liked having multiple points of view, at times it was cumbersome keeping up with exactly who the characters were. Overall I enjoyed this book. It will be perfect for fans of horror, but feel it will especially be good for readers who want to read some light horror during spooky season.

As a fan of Mr. Golden's and someone who has read all of his novels, I feel comfortable saying that I was not a huge fan of this one.

My main disappointment being that a book based entirely around Halloween night would be published in late January.

As someone born in the 80s the nostalgia factor is through the roof and does remind me of why Halloween night was always my favorite night of the year.

I think there is too little of everything in this book. There are a lot of characters and a lot of turmoil going on, but none of it is fleshed out in a way that really made me care one way or the other.

It was fun for the nostalgia factor, but very low on the scare factor.

Oooh, this was good! I loved the creepiness and buildup in the beginning and watching everything unfold on Halloween. Really enjoyed all of the characters and the diversity there.

This was certainly a creepy book.
It takes place over Halloween night and into the next day. Every chapter features a different character which at times I found a bit confusing. There was a lot going on. It’s a good book to add to your Halloween reading list.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

The cover automictically sold me, but this was a bit slow moving with A LOT of characters it was sorta had to keep track.

“Nothing in these woods could be more dreadful, more terrifying than the selfish cruelty of ordinary people.”

All Hallows’ and it’s central character, The Cunning Man had all the makings of an eerie, atmospheric, 80’s style Halloween horror, but in reality we got a story mostly about the conflict of neighbours with the thrills and chills taking a major backseat. The authors attempt to remedy this by throwing in some pretty graphic horror scenes near the conclusion but they felt poorly executed and did nothing to enhance the story.

In addition, this book had way too many POVs {fifteen to be exact} and it made for a glacial pace at which to tell this story given that the book clocks in at just over 320 pages.

There was an interesting twist I wasn’t expecting but it was way too little, too late.

This book was definitely not for me and there are so many content warnings that I quite literally wouldn’t even know where to start if I created my own list.

I am grateful to @StMartinsPress and @NetGalley for this ARC and the opportunity to review this book prior to publication day in exchange for an honest review.

Pub Day for All Hallows’ is January 24th 2023

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review!

DNF at 33%. I was really looking forward to this creepy story but when the tension wasn’t building, I had to let it go.

This type of story is right up my alley, but I came away with it just feeling “meh.” Whenever something creepy was happening, we’d switch characters and move to a different plot point which really didn’t help with adding to the tension or the creepiness. I was hoping for something with a faster pace and it just wasn’t cutting it for me.

Set in 1984 on Halloween night, this books is right up there w/ the awesomeness that is Stephen King. Creepy characters, costumes, neighborhood drama, spooky woods….it is EVERYTHING you’d want in Halloween horror novel. I’m only sad that this book releases is January and not October. It’s absolutely perfect for Halloween, And the bad guy isn’t who you may think….

*Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this e-arc.*

Thank you to NetGalley, Christopher Golden and St Martin’s Press for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn’t sure what to expect since my first read from this author gave me mixed feelings. But this sounded too good to not give it a chance. I really enjoyed this one. It wasn’t fast paced, but it reminded me of all the bad 80’s horror movies that I so enjoy. This would totally make one of those movies with a million sequels and I would watch every single one. Definitely recommend if you like bad horror films like Friday the 13th.

This book is many things.

It is a Halloween story. Set in the 1980s, although it doesn't go over-the-top with the nostalgia element. Many times throughout the book, I forgot that it was set in the past and then some little reference would pop up to remind me. But Halloween in the 80s...if you're old enough to remember that, you know how awesome it was.

It is a story of a neighborhood and the people who inhabit it. Halloween or not, life goes on in the homes along Parmenter Road, and what happens behind closed doors proves that day-to-day life is often stranger than the horrors that dwell in our imaginations.

It is the tale of a supernatural horror (or two) and the ways in which the evils of other worlds can come through to infect our own when the veil is thin on All Hallows' Eve.

Christopher Golden manages to spin a yarn of autumn woods and pumpkin faces, friendship and young love, and everyday horrors mixed with those straight from humanity's nightmares. While the actual horror elements - creepy children, tales of an ancient witch, and the flame-eyed Cunning Man himself - are scary enough, and swell to fill the last third of so of the book, it was the interplay between the residents of Parmenter Road leading up to the climax that truly drew me in and showed off Golden's skill at capturing the real-life secrets and sins, atrocities and anxieties of people's everyday lives. One line in the book captures this perfectly:

"Nothing in these woods could be more dreadful, more terrifying, than the selfish cruelty of ordinary people."

So, if you're looking for a little Halloween fix in January (or want to grab it and save it for October), if you are a fan of small town horror, kids as heroes, or if you've been chasing that nostalgic "shiver down the spine as you trick or treat because there just MIGHT be something out there in the darkness" thrill for decades...this book is for you.

As a Halloween loving horror fan who grew up in the 80s, I was giddy with excitement over the description of this book. Pair that with the fact that the setting is a fictional town called Coventry as I sat here reading it from my home in an actual town called Coventry and the anticipation was almost more than my little dark heart could handle.
I love holiday themed horror, especially when that holiday is Halloween. So I wondered, could All Hallows possibly live up to my expectations?
YES! This is my first 5 star read of the year.

A perfect blend of nostalgia, realism and the supernatural collide on Parmenter Road where the nice guys, the racists, the bigots, and the hypocrites coexist as neighbors. There were characters I loved and characters I loved to hate. I felt like this could be any town in 1980s New England including my own. In the midst of The neighborhood Haunted Woods attraction, and the annual Halloween festivities, something uninvited stirs on this special night when the veil is thin. A doorway opens and something comes through to crash the party. As marriages crumble and friendships are tested, peculiar children not of this world walk this final October Eve, blending in with the trick-or-treaters, and begging for help. Not all will survive the night.

This just wasn't for me. I found that there were too many characters. I found that the supernatural element clashed with the real-life drama - it felt almost anticlimactic. I also felt like this book managed to drag on without actually give you enough information at the same time somehow? While I didn't hate it, I guess I just didn't get it.

Halloween night, 1984—all over Parmenter Road, anticipation hangs in the air. Kids prep their costumes for an evening of trick-or-treating, teenagers plan a night of drunken debauchery in the woods, and their parents set up a neighborhood party to let loose. And Tony Barbosa is setting up his town famous Haunted Woods to scare and thrill his neighbors for one last time before moving away.

While the adults are drinking and gossiping about their neighbors, the kids and teenagers are roaming the streets trick-or-treating—and they are not alone. Four unknown trick-or-treaters dressed in odd vintage costumes have joined the groups of kids of Parmenter Road, putting them ill-at-ease. When the neighborhood kids confront the interlopers, the strange children beg them for help and protection from an entity known as The Cunning Man. With the adults distracted by scandalous revelations that rock their neighborhood, it is up to the Parmenter Road kids to protect these strange kids from The Cunning Man.

Strengths- I liked that the book is told in multiple perspectives. In a story like this, it is the only way it could be told effectively, one character could not have achieved it. The time period chosen was perfect—1980s was the last time period where kids could roam free without parents hovering over them. If the book were set in modern day, how scary would it be in the era of cell phones, the internet, and Tik Tok videos?

Weakness- I would have liked a little less of the family drama.

I feel the publisher really missed a big opportunity not releasing All Hallows during the fall, capitalizing on the “spooky” season. This book gave me big Stranger Things meets Trick-or-Treat vibes. I could see this becoming a movie in the future, but only if Golden is involved with the screenplay.

4/5 Stars

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions of this work are my own.

**Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Christopher Golden for an ARC of this book!**

Think about Milk Duds for a second.

When you get them in your treat bag on Halloween, it SEEMS like it should be a win: chocolate, caramel. What could go wrong?!

Then once you open the box and actually start CHEWING one...instant regret.

And, sad to say, that SAME feeling of sinking regret came back to 'haunt' me after reading All Hallows.

It's 1984 and Halloween night. In a quiet Massachusetts neighborhood, Tony Barbosa is amping up for the Haunted Woods event he always hosts (aided by daughter Claire) and a big Halloween block party is simultaneously happening across the neighborhood at the Koenig's place. But all of the Halloween hijinks are about to come to a halt...the tales of a creepy "Cunning Man" on the loose AND the appearance of some CREEPY children, dressed in very 'vintage' costumes will have everyone scrambling for cover. Where did they come from? Is the strange couple everyone in the neighborhood has been whispering about been hiding something sinister, deep within their home? And could the "Cunning Man" be MORE than simple legend and folklore...and next to ring the doorbell?

Christopher Golden has put out several books, but this is my first of his, so I went into this book pretty blind and with few expectations OTHER than those mentioned in the publisher's blurb: Stranger Things vibes and creepy Halloween horror. What I got instead was a LOT of Neighborhood Gossip about "that weird couple", a fixation on a blossoming relationship between two teen girls, and plenty of lamenting by a fed-up wife about her dopey husband....oh, and some Halloween spooks and plenty of 80's references sprinkled in to fit the 'theme.'

Unfortunately, because of all of this focus on other themes and plot points, the Cunning Man and the creepy kids sort of run in the background and flit in and out of the plot until the very end. But when the Cunning Man should have been at his most terrifying, I was so mentally checked out that the horror scenes played sort of a corny TV movie in the background and didn't do a whole lot for me. I don't really get the Stranger Things comparison, unless it's banking solely on the fact that it is 1984 and some teens are involved...but that's a pretty weak comparison. I found the explanation for who and what the Cunning Man was to be a bit boring and other than describing the cover art, I didn't feel that satisfied by the ending.

Towards the end of the book, I FINALLY found a passage that resonated with me: "They left the woods behind. Left Rick behind. Left October behind.

Tony's love for Halloween had come to an end."

And when it comes to All Hallows, much like my willingness to ever grab another pack of Milk Duds...I think next time I'll let be smart enough to let the word DUD speak for itself.

3 stars

#AllHallowsBook #partner

Thanks so much for letting me review this book. The cover to the book was awesome. The storyline was a bit slow pace, but I did liked it. Hope more readers discover this book, as this book was just not for me. Again thank so much for the opportunity so I can discover more new reads.

This one sounded SO good and promising, but unfortunately I was rather disappointed with it. I was hoping for a book that would keep me on the edge of my seat and lots of spooks, but this lacked both of those for me. It was a fun read, but I think it was just too drawn out and too much drama and lack of the scares that I was hoping for.


👍🏻𝒲𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝐼 𝐿𝒾𝓀𝑒𝒹:

-A great spooky season read
-The nostalgia of some things referenced throughout the book that made me reminisce on my childhood in the 80’s.
-Loads of drama throughout
-The Stranger Things vibe
-Diverse characters
-The last 25-30% of the book was the best part


👎🏻𝒲𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝐼 𝒟𝒾𝓈𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒𝒹:

-Too many different perspectives
-More than half the book lacked the “horror” vibes and was more drama than anything
-Lacked the scariness I was hoping for
-This seemed to drag on a lot