"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.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was just ok, a little atomospheric, a little intriguing. But nothing more, nothing mind blowing

Oh this started out strong for me and definitely took some turns I didn't see coming. I found some parts a tad confusing, but overall a good book that I would recommend especially during the Halloween season!

I have recently gotten more into horror books and was excited to give this book a shot. You can tell by his writing that Christopher Golden is a veteran author. His prose ran smoothly, if not a little slow, and his characters were well developed. I wish there had been fewer points of view however. Forever hoping in-between 10ish different characters was something I expect out of a high fantasy, not a horror. As mentioned before, the story moves very slowly and we don't really get to the intense part until almost the end of the book. I expect to be heart pumping, edge of my seat when reading horror and this just did not give any of that to me. The atmosphere was great, however, and did make me feel like I was back in the 80s. I think it gave it an isolated feel that we don't get with modern settings and technology.

Thank you NetGalley St. Martin's Press and author for my copy. This horror with 80's/Stranger Things vibes was an enjoyable read and would have been the perfect Spooky Season book. There are many characters and I liked the multiple perspectives but it is a little hard to keep them all straight in the beginning. Also, it's a little bit too much of a slow burn for a horror/thriller but if you have patience you'll be rewarded when events start unfolding up to the satisfying end.

As a big Halloween horror fan, I had high hopes for this one. Sadly, it was t what I was hoping for. I felt parts of this one were a little bit slow and there was not enough scare factor for me.

I honestly thought this was going to be some Halloween tree-esque, quaint all Hallows Eve story for about half the book. And then all hell broke loose. I loved this gory, terrifying horror/fairytale.

I'm really disappointed that this was a let-down for me. I DNF'd at around the 30%.
I went into this hoping for a "Stranger Things"-inspired horror/thriller, which is how this book was marketed. However, up until the 30% mark, there was really no plot. I spent a third of the book reading about the family/relationship drama of the neighborhood. There were too many characters and POVs to keep track of and I personally couldn't relate to any of them.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for my copy.

This one was a little rough.

First of all, I liked the plot. I thought the idea was unique and was excited to see how it was executed.

But overall, it was disappointing. The first half felt like a soap opera. You're switching POV's between the adults and kids of this neighborhood, hearing all of their drama. Which is fine. Books like that exist and are good. But that isn't really what the blurb leads you to think will be the focus of the book. The spooky stuff takes about 2/3rds of the book to really kick in. I think those two things would have separately made a great book, but ultimately, there was just too much going on.

I wish there had been more focus on the horror part of the plot. Having the kids run around in the woods on Halloween really sets you up for some really creepy circumstances. But again, you don't really get that until almost the end of the book.

I also felt as though the writing style left a little to be desired. There was a lot of explaining the personalities of the characters instead of just showing it through their actions. There was also a lot of repetition regarding who was related and how old everyone was. Those two things kind of give the book a slightly juvenile feel.

All Hallows by Christopher Golden is a Halloween horror that takes place in 1984. The story is slow paced for about 70% of the story then goes at rapid pace and doesn't stop until the end. The horror and the gore when we finally get there is intense and no holds barred. The narrative of the story consist of 15 perspectives which for the most part is families parents and children. This was an element I did not care for it was too much too soon, I had a real hard time keeping up with who was related to who and who was friends with who. It was pretty messy, until the 50% mark then I was able to put it together. I felt the parents were a lot more memorable than the kids, and generally liked most of their stories over the kids who at the beginning only one kid really stuck out. I felt the lore was lazy and missing a lot for me to by the premiss. This book was almost a do not finish but the last half was actually good and finally caught my interest. The finally has some good moments and gets pretty intense. The over all story was just okay it had a good twist or two, but when I found out the major twist I was not too impressed. There's so okay characterization especially the LGTBQ story line which was the only kids story I enjoyed. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin Press for giving me a free copy to review. All Hallows was published on January 24 2023.

Plot Summary: It is Halloween 1984 in the small town of Coventry, Massachusetts. One Family that has a a big plot of land and loves Halloween makes a haunted woods for charity, every year but this one will me the last. Everything goes well but the town start noticing kids in vintage costumes that no one seems to know. The kids in vintage costumes have no family ad ask adults and kids for help as they're being stalked by a tall jack o'lanterned man with candle lit eyes.

What I Liked: How hardcore the story gets where at the end no one is safe. I really liked the LGTBQ storyline and first kiss. I Liked most of the adults stories that were way more interesting than the kids. I like the way the Haunted woods was described, I wished more of the story would have taken place around that area. One twist was pretty memorable and changed the story for the good. I loved the cover art, it was creepy and eye catching.

What I Disliked: The kids stories, it took so long for their characters to develop and to have unique thought which made them stand out from the other kids. The backstory for the horror element was really under developed, and did not explain enough about the kids or the boogie man. The start was too slow nothing happens for way too long.

Recommendations: All Hallows is a story I can not recommend, there's way more interesting horror that is written better with bigger ideas. The story for this book was lacking and I needed a lot better pace. I have been recommended Christopher Golden book from my fellow horror bloggers, so maybe this was a fluke and will try him out another time. I rated All Hallows by Christopher Golden 2.5 out of 5 stars. I kept going back and forth between 2 and 3 stars, the last 30% boosted it a little.

I loved this book!!!!! It was so good!! I enjoyed this book so much. I was so happy when I was approved for a copy of this book. Thank you so much st martins press and netgalley