“Some people go missing because they want to; some go missing because they’re taken. And then there are the others who go missing because they fall through a gap somewhere and can’t claw their way back.”
From the fascinating mind of Krystal Sutherland—author of Our Chemical Hearts and A Semi-Definite List of Worst Nightmares—comes a brand-new novel that will creep on into your heart like the weeds in a garden. Dark, surreal, and visceral, House of Hollow will not leave anyone who reads it indifferent. We already knew that Krystal Sutherland is an artist when it comes to mixing reality and fantasy to a perfect, whimsical equilibrium, but this time, she has hands down outdone herself. Raw, mysterious, delicate, beautiful, revolting, engrossing…many adjectives could describe House of Hollow and yet, none would do it enough justice. You will just have to see for yourself, dear reader.
House of Hollow follows the story of three sisters—Grey, Vivi, and Iris—who disappeared into thin air when they were little only to suddenly come back almost as completely different people. With their hair turned white and eyes black, the Hollow sisters became a mystery surrounded by thinly-veiled power and the smell of lush greenery. Their mystery, however, is also one for Iris to unravel, as she does not remember what happened to them…or the lives they had before.
This novel is quite a hard one to categorise: a mixture of urban fantasy, mystery, thriller, and fairytale, Krystal Sutherland combines all of the best bits and pieces of each and every genre to create something new and magical. Something that almost feels alive. Very much like A Semi-Definite List of Worst Nightmares, Sutherland maintains her gorgeous, characteristic atmospheric style; one that almost reads like a dreamscape. But while the one she used for her 2017 novel was light and breezy, the atmosphere of House of Hollow resembles the essence of a nightmare. The pages of this book are filled to the brim with flowers, dead things, and raw power, portraying a world where everything is just not quite right—that certain sense of liminality that is so hard to put your finger on.
Whimsical, twisted, and organic, House of Hollow conjures the strength of nature, death, and decay to paradoxically bring the Halfway—the place between life and death—to life. This novel lays Sutherland’s formidable descriptive prose bare. Through her masterful use of adjectives, metaphors, and imagery, the author is able to stir up the most primal emotions on the reader. We are not lying when we say that you can almost smell the forest, flowers, and decomposition while reading this novel. It is truly mind-blowing: the rotten smells will make you gag and the beauty of the clothes Grey makes will leave you daydreaming about them for days. And beware of the man with the skull on his head, because he will also end up haunting your dreams. Like an insect running up and down your every limb, Krystal Sutherland is able to make your skin crawl with her words alone, while keeping a firm grip on her beautiful imagery.
Of course, that is not all. House of Hollow also explores the familial ties that bound most people together through thick and thin, especially siblings. This topic, she has already explored before, but, this time, sisterhood becomes the driving force of the novel, along with self-discovery, the management of grief, and learning to fend for oneself. Furthermore, Sutherland also explores the curse of beauty. How, as a woman, being beautiful has its advantages, but it mostly puts you in a constant state of danger. Through the magic of compulsion that the Hollow sisters wield, Sutherland seems to create a poignant analogy for the female boundaries, appearance, and sexuality: in our current society, they are nothing but a double-edged sword. For the Hollow sisters, this reality is amplified and made painfully aware to them in different, yet overlapping ways. All of these elements are additionally tied up by an outstanding set of morally-grey characters that, despite doing the most gruesome things, are impossible to hate.
So, what are you waiting for? A perfect pick for fans of Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle saga, House of Hollow is a standalone novel that you will not be able to put down until you have all the answers, hidden deep into the forest of the Halfway. Take a leap of faith and follow the Hollow sisters into their trip to the past to search for answers. Let the flowers of death and grief consume you, and uncover the truth of the three Hollow sisters. Proceed with caution, though, Grey, Vivi, and Iris are rather keen on getting under the skin of anyone who dares to cross their path.
House of Hollow is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of April 6th 2021.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.
Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind.
As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.
The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.
