"𝑩𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆." -𝑪𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒚 𝑮𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒓𝒅, "𝑻𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝑵𝒐 𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒔"

All Hallows by Christopher Golden centers around one neighborhood in Massachusetts and readers take a journey with multiple neighbors and their POV on Halloween night 1984. There are profound family secrets, dark rumors about the new neighbors, and unknown children wearing spooky vintage costumes that no one seems to know. They all claim to be hiding from someone. That someone is The Cunning Man.

Thank you @stmartinspress and Christopher Golden for the #gifted copy. I was given a free eARC copy in exchange for my honest opinion

TW ⚠️
Too many to list

𝘐 𝘌𝘕𝘑𝘖𝘠𝘌𝘋...
• The atmosphere and energy. I'll be honest, I wasn't alive in 1984 but I do remember simpler times when children could wander the neighborhood without their parents fearing the worst.
• The multiple POVs in this book are done well. Golden wrote each character's point of view distinctly.
• The diverse cast of characters includes different minority groups and LGBT reps.

𝘐 𝘏𝘈𝘋 𝘈 𝘏𝘈𝘙𝘋 𝘛𝘐𝘔𝘌 𝘞𝘐𝘛𝘏...
• Once the action initiates it builds at a fast pace and by the end, there are so many happenings that it is slightly overwhelming.

𝘖𝘝𝘌𝘙𝘈𝘓𝘓...
This was a fantastic horror story and it certainly has been a long time since I've enjoyed one so thoroughly.

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲
🎃 The tv show Stranger Things.
🎃 Suburban Drama
🎃 Children of the Corn movie
🎃 The Strangers movie
🎃 Halloween scares

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 (7.57/10 CAWPILE)

All Hallows will sink it's claws in you. There are so many different perspectives that at times it can be a little confusing. However, it is so well written that it doesn't matter. I was not expecting who the actual villain was in this story and I loved finding out at the end.

3.5 out of 5 stars (3.5 / 5) 1984 Halloween night. One neighborhood is simultaneously falling apart and enthusiastically celebrating Halloween.

From multiple POV, we see families falling apart, racial discrimination, and more. Add in that it’s the night of Halloween and it’s the perfect mixture for chaos.

“Nothing could stay perfect, but if you were lucky and diligent, you could steal a few perfect moments in your life.”

This definitely had a Stranger Things vibe due to the time period but also the characters. We get to know quite a few, which was a lot to keep track of. However, once I started taking notes I found myself connecting them all and remembering their stories. One part I loved was the multiple POV. Multiple POV can be difficult! The characters were introduced well, presenting a great connection to the story. But I really loved that the POV added in the opposing view. Not only did we hear from the kids and parents, but the “villains” also. That is what I’m here for!

Sadly, this one did not instill fear. I kept waiting for the creepy feeling (that’s why we read horror, right?) but never did feel it. Bodies were piling up, children were being taken, families were being torn apart and I still felt nothing. I believe this is due to changing the POV so often. I didn’t get enough into each side of the story before it changed again. Once again, I loved the multiple POV, but I wonder if that was the downfall for my lack of fear. So while it fell short in the scary factor, it was still a fun read.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the gifted copy!

This book will hit all the right notes for a spooky season read.

Admittedly, it was a bit hard to get in the mood in January when I picked it up, but it's a good one for any horror lover.

One aspect I really enjoyed about this book is that much of it felt like a neighborhood drama (which I love). Everyone knew everyone's business, there were lots of fake and shady people, and oh so much drama.

With all of the narrators, we really got to know several families which added a lot to the story. Once I got the characters and families straight, it was easy to form connections and get invested in their lives. Then Golden has to go and STRESS us out with everything that unfolds and all they face!

Golden is a master at crafting his language to put the ultimate shock and stress on his readers! At first, I had to reread parts as the gore and horror began as I would read a page and think to myself, wait, did that just happen? Golden snuck in bits of theatrics that were easy to miss but fear not gore lovers, as the plot thickens, the violence and scare factors are also increased.

Once the horror aspect of the story got started, the pace really picked up, but this didn't happen until about 3/4 of the way through. Some pieces of the plot felt a little familiar and predictable, but overall, this was definitely a unique read.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for a copy of this novel. Make sure it's on your list for Halloween!

3.75 stars rounded up.

I really enjoyed this creepy Halloween themed book! The setting of the town surrounded by the woods on Halloween night was perfect. It reminded me why I will never be a fan of camping or spending time outdoors at night! The multiple points of view were great, though I have to admit that in the beginning, it felt like a lot of characters to keep track of. The kids were super creepy. Scary children will get me almost every time! Overall, an entertaining read!

The darkness wrapped the woods in its embrace, squeezing every last bit of life from the branches. A cold seeped in bringing a dreadful eerie tone. Rot bubbled from the ground, expelling a nauseating scent of decay and death. Creatures slowly revealed their hiding places and watched as those entering screamed in terror.

All Hallows is a horror taking place on Halloween in the 80s. It follows a large cast of characters who all live in a neighborhood and are getting reading for Halloween, but this Halloween will be a nightmare.

This is what I love about horror. This book was such a scary good time! As I stated above, there is a huge cast of characters to follow and each chapter is told from someone in the neighborhoods perspective. It was a little confusing at first, but it all tied together well. I do wish the neighborhood drama would have taken more of a backseat and the story stay focused even more on the horror/thrasher vibe, because that’s what I was loving. But overall this was the perfect read for Halloween and I have no idea why this book was published in January.

If you’re looking for 80s Halloween nostalgia, neighborhood horror, and slasher vibes, then I highly recommend picking this book up!

This one didn't really work for me, unfortunately. I found it difficult to get into, and the characters (especially the female characters) didn't have a lot of depth. I liked the concept of following different people around a creepy Hallowe'en season, but I wound up deciding not to finish reading.

All Hallows is an intriguing mystery thriller that is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. Along with it being a horror story, there's a lot of family drama in it. Each family has their own problems and the kids just want to escape from them. What's better than a Halloween night to do that?

I truly wish that this would have released in October instead of January. I think I would have been much more in the creepy mindset for it. It is set in 1984 on Halloween. It’s told from alternating characters perspectives, which I normally love. I could not connect with any of the characters and the plot got a little all over the place.

The premise of this sounded very interesting. I love horror books with 80's vibes. This just didn't live up. It was so slow. The women were the typical "written by men" type. This just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the gifted e-book!

I was pretty surprised that I had requested this book since horror is not my genre, but the description and the 80s time period caught my eye. I finished the entire book and it was not for me. My main gripe is the women did not talk or act like real people. They were caricatures.

The premise is that it is Halloween and a local neighbor is setting up his haunted woods for the last time. His family has to move for financial reasons. A couple of very strange kids in costume show up who appear to be lost. Things go awry. Bigots are revealed. Affairs are discovered. Young love blooms. Creepy monsters enter the picture. A heart is pulled out of a chest. The story line was bizarre, but that might have been the point. What I really disliked was the addition of Zach and Ruth who didn’t advance the storyline at all. They were apparently child molesters/kidnappers/killers and I did not enjoy reading anything from either of their points of view.

I received a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I was really hoping to like this one because it takes place on Halloween in 1984, and it sounded kind of creepy. Sadly, it just dragged for me, and I found myself skimming parts of it because I was bored. While it did pick up towards the end of the book, it still didn't wow me.

I think I would have liked this better if it had focused less on the characters in the neighborhood (there were many, and they all had issues) and more on the Cunning Man and the four "creepy" kids.

Thank you @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the gifted e-arc of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of the book in exchange for my honest review!
I really enjoyed this book. I love a spooky horror book, though it did feel a bit odd reading about a halloween horror during January. I would recommend picking this book up in the fall instead, as I feel half the enjoyment of it is the halloween/fall/haunted trail vibes.

The one thing I found a little difficult when reading this book was how many characters perspectives we were getting. I found it tough to keep everyone straight and had to keep going back to see who each person was and how they were or weren't related to each other.

Other than that I found this a great book, with a creepy atmosphere, and it was a story different from anything I have read before.

3.5 stars rounded up

It's been awhile since I've read a horror novel, this is one I would love to see adapted to the big screen!

- multiple POVs
- thrills and chills
- plot twist you won't see coming

All Hallows is filled with the creepy horror of your favorite comfort Halloween movie. It's Halloween night, 1984. The small Massachusetts town of Coventry holds more than just the Barbosa's annual Haunted Woods attraction. Drawing in crowds from all over, it's not unusual to see unfamiliar faces, especially since this is the last year they'll be hosting. There's a lot more drama going on throughout Parmenter Road and we get to dive into all of it through multiple POV's from the Barbosa's and their neighbors. Small children in out-dated clothes slowly mingle into the festivities, appearing frightened but not of the costumes or the Haunted Woods. They all claim they're hiding from the Cunning Man.

The first half of the book felt very slow for me. It's a lot of sub plot building which does come into play later on, but it did feel like it was dragging at some points. The action really picks up in the second half. Overall, a spooky read that would be great for a film adaption. So many events unfold within this story, each one falling into another until we finally meet the Cunning Man and I enjoyed the plot twists along the way!

So I don't think this book was for me. I enjoy thrillers and books in that vein but I just couldn't get into this one. I found the multiple POVs a little frustrating and normally that doesn't bother me. I enjoyed the writing and don't think this was an issue with skill. I can see myself picking up another book from this author but this one just fell flat for me.

All Hallows follows an entire neighborhood on a Halloween night through multiple points of view. There are mysterious, seemingly terrified children scattered throughout the streets and begging the residents of the neighborhood to help them hide from “The Cunning Man.” At the same time that many members of the community are dealing with their own personal holiday dramas, they begin to realize that maybe the frightened children really are running from something terrifying, dangerous, and supernatural. And they will have to come together and put aside their differences to protect themselves and each other from the dark forces threatening their neighborhood.

I love this entire concept and I really wish I’d gotten to read this in October. I feel like I’ve not read enough horrors, thrillers, or mysteries that take place on Halloween. All Hallows contains the perfect balance of creepy, serious, and fun content. I don’t know how Christopher Golden managed to include such serious stories about families, friendships, and romantic relationships alongside a satisfyingly creepy, but not too heavy, horror tale. I found it impressive that he was able to do that without any of those aspects seeming like they were clumsily or lazily handled. I’m really bad at keeping up with characters’ names, so I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with the different points of view and what the relationships between the characters were. In spite of that I was still able to keep up enough to care about all of the characters and stay invested in each of their individual plot lines. There were over 10 points of view in this book and none of them bored me. I cared about each of them. I think that being able to create that many interesting characters in one standalone novel is also quite impressive. The children who were hiding from The Cunning Man were very creepy as was The Cunning Man himself.

My main complaint is that I thought the ending and the big reveals were anticlimactic. That’s not a huge deal to me because I enjoyed the rest of the story, but it still would’ve been nice to have a satisfying conclusion. I will also say that I cared a lot more about the characters and their relationships than I did about the horror plot itself, and in a horror novel I do prefer more of a focus on plot than characters. But that’s not really a big deal because I did still care about and enjoy the plot as well.

I recommend All Hallows if you’re in the mood for a pretty solid horror read.

All Hallows builds a clear picture of Halloween Day, 1984 in Coventry, Massachusetts. In 1984, Halloween was still a day full of "events' that included every family member in every home in town. Costumes were varied and worn to impress and join into the spooky feeling. The book follows several story lines with each character having a voice and telling their own story......sometimes a little confusing but overall it gave this reader an overall feel for the community's back story that would lead to the center story of disappearing children. As the trick or treaters move throughout the community, we see a glimpse into each household's life, a distraction, or a clue? The trick or treaters have now grown into a large group, including children in unusual costumes and makeup that keep asking for help.

This book had chapters that had me sitting up straighter in my chair and jumping when the dog started barking, but the many threads that wove throughout the book failed to pull all together to an "aha" moment. It WAS a good book with many great parts. I'd definitely recommend it to my reading circle.

Set on Halloween night in 1984 (cue the nostalgia), this story is part horror, part suburban drama. A father-daughter duo who run a haunted forest. A family fight. A shared secret that is guaranteed to change lives. And four kids no one knows, joining in on the trick-or-treating, but helplessly scared of The Cunning Man.

This book is told in multiple POV, which might be a bit much for some readers - it can feel like a lot of characters to learn and care about. The creepy factor is there in spades - the four kiddos that no one knows are wearing vintage costumes for crying out loud! - but it's tempered by the suburban drama. The two main families are absolute disasters. I will say, this book can feel like it's having an identity crisis at times - is it horror, is it drama? - but I think that might actually make it a great crossover for folks who typically only read one genre or the other. Either way, it is dang spooky and will make a great October read.

I want to start this by saying I like horror novels but I almost had to dnf this book. However, I am a trooper and pushed through to the end. This book was just not for me. As soon as I started it I knew I didn’t like the writing style. As I continued to read I just never found anything that I was enjoying about it or connecting with. All Hallows is advertised as a spooky 80’s themed Halloween thriller, but what I got was some lame neighborhood drama for the first 70% of the story and then an info and horror dump at the last 30%. There was racist and homophobic language in this book as well as the sexualization of a teenage girl that I guess was meant to be behavior reminiscent of the 80s, but I didn’t think it added anything to the story and could have been left out. I feel that if the author had spent more time giving us the spooky parts of this book I would have enjoyed it a lot more, but for more than half of the book they’re barely sprinkled into the story. There were some interesting snippets of lore given right at the very end, but it was sparse and overshadowed by the violence and bloodshed that the story ends with. Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me but I want to say thank you to Netgalley and St.Martin’s press for the E-ARC of this book.

On Halloween night in 1984 in Coventry, MA, everything changes for two families and the community. Secrets are being revealed leaving two families in ruins while four children dressed in vintage costumes and makeup join the children to trick-or-treat along Parmenter Road. The children beg people to keep them safe and to hide them until midnight from The Cunning Man who is trying to take the kids away.

All Hallows is creepy, spooky, fun and full of drama. Halloween is my favourite Holiday and I celebrate every day in October so when I read the description, I knew I had to read it. Let me just say, I was not disappointed, I loved this book! As a huge fan of all thing's horror, it checked all my boxes and reminded me of a 80s / early 90s horror flick. The multiple POVs between multiple characters was impressive and everything was amplified due to the excellent writing. Talk about drama/secrets, it was juicy! It was so hard having to put the book down, I found myself rushing tasks to get back to it; I even stayed up three hours later then usual to read the last 30%. It certainly delivers creepy vibes; it creeped the hell out of me. Everything was so descriptive that while I imagined everything I was freaked out.
How is this the only book I’ve read by this author?

Thank you to St. Martins and @netgalley for this ARC in exchange for a review.

Pub Date: 1/24/2023 (Today!)