OHH!! I love me a little Christopher Golden! He creeps me out in all the right ways.

This book was great, creepy, and nostalgic. I read it in one sitting and could not put it down.
10/10 would absolutely recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me an advance reader copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

This combination of horror, intrigue and nostalgia really connected with me! Felt like it was tailor made for me and other fans of Stranger Things! Certainly a book I will be recommending (and displaying) at Halloween time and through out the year!

Description

New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Christopher Golden is best known for his supernatural thrillers set in deadly, distant locales...but in this suburban Halloween drama, Golden brings the horror home.

It’s Halloween night, 1984, in Coventry, Massachusetts, and two families are unraveling. Up and down the street, secrets are being revealed, and all the while, mixed in with the trick-or-treaters of all ages, four children who do not belong are walking door to door, merging with the kids of Parmenter Road. Children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup. They seem terrified, and beg the neighborhood kids to hide them away, to keep them safe from The Cunning Man.

There’s a small clearing in the woods now that was never there before, and a blackthorn tree that doesn’t belong at all. These odd children claim that The Cunning Man is coming for them...and they want the local kids to protect them. But with families falling apart and the neighborhood splintered by bitterness, who will save the children of Parmenter Road?

All Hallows. The one night when everything is a mask...

All Hallows by Christopher Golden definitely kept me on the edge of my seat! "With the 80's nostalgia of Stranger Things, this horror drama from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden follows neighborhood families and a mysterious, lurking evil on one Halloween day." If you like spooky mixed in with a lot of neighborhood drama, pick up All Hallows but wait until October to read!

This started out promising. It's Halloween night in the 80s, a family is setting up their annual haunted woods, and there are strange children around. But the ending felt rushed after following too many characters around all night.

If you're looking for the perfect spooky Halloween book, this is a definite read. I had heard of Christopher Golden before but had never read any of this books. Now I'm very excited to start diving into his backlist of spooky books. As Halloween is my favorite holiday there was no doubt about me reading this. It was creepy, unsettling, and full of twists galore. I thought I would get confused by the multiple POVs but the characters were so perfectly fleshed out that I wasn't confused at all. The children in the creepy, old costumes were definitely the one aspect of this story that prevented me from reading this book at night, they truly scared me. I also enjoyed all of the crumbling family dynamics in this book, it was a nice break from all the brutal horror.

Many thanks to St. Martins Press for the gifted copy for my honest review.

Creepy and unsettling, this is the perfect spooky halloween read. I absolutely loved the 80's throwback. The fact that it took place in Ma and Portuguese names sealed the deal for me. ALL THE STARS!!

I love horror and, while this is a classical horror story and a perfect Halloween read, I was pulled more into the neighborhood drama and family relationships more than into the growing terror and supernatural threat in the woods. I don't know if this is good or bad - I will say it makes it a good choice for those who want to try horror or a spooky read but are really into fiction for the characters, their growth and drama. It has a Stephen King / Stanger Things vibe with multiple characters, ages, and story lines. It's easy to recommend to readers looking for that.

If you are obsessed with Halloween like I am, like think about it ALL yearlong like I do, then this is the read for you!

Vintage Halloween vibes are my vibe, always have been and always will be and this is the PERFECT read for that!

This is just one of those books that is meant to be in the hands of someone who looks forward to Halloween all year long. I just happen to be one of those people. This story is told during the afternoon and evening of Halloween. Although I have read this, it was not on Halloween, and so I fully intend to pick this up on Halloween and while greeting the trick or treaters, treat myself to this again. (see what I did there?) But honestly the nostalgia horror/creepy references is amazing. The overall dark and sinister feeling that the author achieved from basically page one with this book was amazing. Nearly immediately after starting it I got that creeptastic vibe that stayed with me throughout the whole book. My only criticism of the book was that in certain parts we needed more detail, more back story. I felt the story lacked a little bit in its bones, but overall for the lover of all things Halloween and creepy, this is a great read.

I wanted to like this book but it didn't really go anywhere for me. Too many characters and it dragged often. I was hoping for more scares that never really came.

"All Hollows" is a spine-chilling thriller that will have you at the edge of your seat from the first page to the last. The author's writing style is fluid and the plot is well-crafted, making it the perfect read for Halloween fans and thriller enthusiasts.

This book had a very slowwww start and it was really difficult to get into. There wasn't much action at all in the first half of the book and I needed more to keep my interest. I put it down several times.

🎃☠️Book Review:
Title: All Hallows
Author: Christopher Golden
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/4 stars

Yep. I liked it. I liked it a lot. I do think the scary "monster" could have been a tad more terrifying, but the dead kids definitely took that role! I loved the 80s vibes, the dead kids walking around in vintage costumes, trick or treating.....ooooo so good!

It's 1984 in a small town called Coventry, Massachusetts. It's Halloween night, and it's time to get all the candy and par-tay!!! But four kids don't belong. Nobody knows who they are but they seem terrified of something or someone. Then they mention the "Cunning Man."

This story has the haunted woods attraction, the Halloween after party, the costumes, the trick or treating, the scares and everything you love about Halloween if you're a fan! 🎃 I recommend it!

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Published: January 24th. 2023

This is a spooky slow burn Halloween story. It kind of reminds me of Trick-r-Treat in vibe. We get to follow a couple of families on the night of Halloween sometimes in the 80's. They're all going through their own family drama but on top of that there are these weird little kids following them around. This was a really slow burn for me. Most of the book we are just following the families and their drama. The action only really picks up in the last little bit of the book. This was definitely an atmospheric read.

I thought this was a fun Halloween themed story. It's filled with dark things and dread. I really liked it.

This story was told in third person by multiple narrators. It follows the members of a close-knit neighborhood on Halloween night in 1984. I’ve enjoyed previous stories by this author and was excited that he had written an historical Halloween horror story; however, I felt like this was more of a domestic drama than a horror story, more caught up in who’s sleeping together, who’s drunk and which teenagers are betraying each other’s trust. It had horror elements throughout, but they were basic and less complicated than I would have liked.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy provided for an honest review.

What a wonderfully planned out book! The characters and their relationships were wonderfully done and the turn of events really kept me on my toes.

great book and such great characters. I enjoyed the mystery and some romance. I also enjoyed the journey of the characters. I didn't know what to expect with this book but I enjoyed it .

I’ve read some great books by Christopher Golden in the past, especially the Ben Walker series. Then I see he has a new Halloween thriller set back in my heyday of the 1980s. Sign me up!

Unfortunately, All Hallows failed to live up to my expectations. Was it me? Was it him? Was it us? It’s hard to say, but this story just didn’t work for me.

I think when a book is written around a particular time of year, it should release that time of year. Nothing makes me shake my head more than a Christmas story releasing in February. What the heck? Timing is everything. If you ran that far behind, sit on the darn thing for another nine months and release it as that season is approaching. I’ll put that one on the publisher. Seasonal books are best released and read during the season!

I think that Golden really missed the boat on the nostalgia factor. Setting a story in the '80s allows the author to immediately create a connection with a certain segment of the population. Go there! Make me remember the fun time I had growing up. Where was the music? The slasher movies? Everything that made the '80s the '80s. All Hallows felt like it could have been set any time. The only thing that reinforced that it wasn’t set in this day and age is that the kids weren’t walking around staring at their cell phones.

Golden bounced around from one character, to another, to another. I didn’t develop any connections. As a reader, I need a connection to really get into a story, otherwise my mind will wander, and I fixate on small, annoying details. In All Hallows, I started to focus on all of the dads. What a bunch of arses! Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Yes, Mr. Golden. I get it, the '80s were a different time. Racism and sexism were more prevalent. But not every dad was a cheating, racist, intolerant creep, ogling over 17-year-old girls in Halloween costumes.

I’m going to write All Hallows off as a one-off. Maybe I need a new Ben Walker story.

*3 Stars

This was not the book for me. I struggled to find this captivating. The plot took too long to suck me in. By the time things really got interesting, I was bored. It had its creepy moments. But overall I did not find this all that scary.