The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher
I would like to thank Sarah from Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for affair and honest review
Publisher – Titan Books
Published – Out Now
Price - £8.99 paperback £4.68 Kindle eBook
Carrot has moved into the Wonder Museum - an eclectic collection of taxidermy, shrunken heads, and Mystery Junk owned by her Uncle Earl. For Carrot, it’s not creepy at all: she grew up with it. What’s creepy is the corridor behind one of the museum walls. There’s just no space for a corridor there – or the concrete bunker, or the strange islands beyond the bunker’s doors, or the unseen things in the willow trees.
Carrot has stumbled into a horrifying world, and They are watching her. Strewn among the islands are the remains of Their meals – and Their experiments. And even if she manages to make it home, she can’t stop calling Them after her…
One of the key pieces why we love fantasy and horror is the idea that there is more to our world than we know. We want the Loch Ness Monster to finally raise her head on film, we know the standing stones in a circle has something weird about it. Its our modern world touching something different. In fantasy and horror, we sometimes move across that to imagine us crossing over into spirit worlds or world of something else. When horror tales that idea darker things may be found in those hidden worlds. This is the idea that T Kingfisher plays with in the enthralling The Hollow Places where a hole in the wall brings mystery, surprise, and terror.
Kara is a newly divorced woman who has agreed to live and work with their eccentric but loveable Uncle Earl. This means she gets to work in his Wonder Museum a treasure trove devoted to all that is weird be it Lifesize replicas of Mothman, alleged Mermaids or various creates that may or may not exist. Its exactly the new start she needs, and she starts to make new friends and work out what is next. But then she is alerted to a hole in the wall. This shows a corridor that cannot exist in the two-storey building. Her and her friend Steven the barista from next door decide to investigate where it leads, and they find a bunker that leads to a strange place of small islands in a river potentially without ends. In that place you can see little and hear things in the distance and slowly they realise they aren’t alone and also that this place is very easy to get trapped in or it even worse it may even change you into something even scarier.
A short while ago I talked about loving Kingfisher’s The Twisted Ones a strange tale of a folk horror legend that stayed in the woods. This tale has some similarities but is also much eerier. If Twisted Ones is about the myths, we have about what lies in the darker parts of the world this I about what happens when our sense of reality itself goes wrong. That terrible feeling that we’ve gone too far and in a place that just is fundamentally wrong, and we don’t belong there.
A big part of setting up this tale is the real world that Kingfisher puts us in Our main character Kara aka Carrot is the narrator of the story and is a truly loveable character to listen to - funny, sarcastic and emotionally honest about the sense of dislocation they were already feeling after the divorce. This really helps us get invested in what happens to her and also, we get a great double act with her friend Steven a gay man who is quickly becoming s dear friend. They trade wisecracks and also keep each other sane as the story shifts.
When we finally move past our world then Kingfisher does a lot to unsettle us. We get a sense of something alien and unwelcoming. There are a lot of references to the tales of Narnia but this world is not a fantasy one of talking animals this is a strange trap like place where clearly what live there preys on the unary who fall into it. As Kara and Steven investigate, we get snapshots of other visitors to this place and what happened there. Body horror, strange messages on walls and accounts of teribble things await and slowly but surely this place gets under both Kara and the reader’s skin. You’ll be itching for them to escape this place and also even hope nothing else comes with them. Throw in the wonderfully strange environment of the Wonder Museum with various stuffed animals all looking at you it sets up a tale of someone taking a wrong turn and finding their world is no longer what they thought it was.
This was a smart and unsettling horror tale delivered with excellent storytelling that can make you laugh and then very quickly gasp. It reminds us why we may have tested the back of our wardrobes as children but also perhaps will make you get worried that next time you try something else may take your hand and pull you in. Highly recommended!
