Following her divorce, Kara is invited to stay in the spare room of her uncle’s business, the Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities, and Taxidermy. She’s made of stronger stuff than me – or at least, grew up around the stuffed animals and all manner of oddities, to the point where they aren’t freaking her out every night. Even Kara has her limits, though, and they’re about to be tested.

When a hole is left – by a clumsy tourist, she assumes – in one of the museum’s walls, it turns out to lead to an impossible corridor, which in turn leads to an entirely otherworldly dimension. Too curious not to explore, despite their better judgement, Kara and neighbour Simon might have just made the worst mistake of their lives…

I confess I was far, far too much of a wuss to read T Kingfisher’s – the pen name for non-children’s book titles of the wonderful Ursula Vernon – previous book, The Twisted Ones, as all reports were that it was creepy as heck. I have so little tolerance for things that will keep me from sleeping these days! But UrsulaV is such a wonderful writer, and my own curiosity got the better of me. Thankfully, while extremely creepy, it wasn’t too nightmare-inducing and I found it to be deliciously appropriate for the spooky season – but then, I made well sure to only read it during the day time!

What I’ve always loved about the author’s storytelling is how down to earth it is, even as the most fantastical stuff starts to happen. Kara – or Carrot, as she’s nicknamed – is a refreshly normal heroine. She’s also slightly older, doesn’t have kids – in fact, having followed Ms Vernon on social media platforms for… urm, decades, wow… it was really cool seeing all manner of things slip into this book from her real life. Kara is a graphic designer, not illustrator, but the divorce, the age, the time spent in coffee shops, etc etc. There are also cool ‘easter eggs’ to her other work (written and artistic), such as the cane toads reference and the ‘illustration that ended up looking unintentionally phallic’, that just added an extra layer of smiles.

But you don’t have to ‘get’ any of that at all to be thoroughly transported into this story and the worlds it contains. The unnamed malevolence of the things they encounter, the shocking possibilities… it’s so vivid, so well told. And without giving too much away, it takes a direction portal fantasy doesn’t always, making those characters just all the more real.

I’d recommend reading this during daylight hours, and perhaps avoiding trees for a while, but oooh – I do recommend it!

T. Kingfisher's 'The Hollow Places' is funny and considerably lighthearted and fun for a horror novel about a woman who gets stuck in -- and then haunted by -- a terrifying other world full of monsters known only as Them. The horror loses steam in the last part once you reconcile with the fact that every character's survival is guaranteed, but that doesn't take away that the threat actually feels very real, and that you actually care for the trauma inflicted upon our characters.

I enjoyed the humour in this novel to a point. I would be laughing at moments, then immediately roll my eyes and groan at how ridiculous it seemed. I think the characters are endearing, but it feels almost unbearable to be with them for the entire novel. I also found that there was a repetitive quality to events in the novel and also in the way things were phrased, that read as if T. Kingfisher couldn't quite figure out how to do something new to shift the direction of the plot and instead resorted to previous actions.

Overall, though, this is very readable and was just a lot of fun to read, and I'm definitely going to check out more of their work in the future!

This book was an utter disappointment. So much so, that I couldn't even force myself to finish it. From the blurb I assumed this book would be an atmospheric, spooky read about a hidden bunker and an exciting adventure through alternate realities. Instead what I read was a poor attempt at a comedy novel that had absolutely no atmosphere or scary element. The characters, although said to be over 30 years old, read like 15 year olds, the humour is not humorous at all, the writing is plain and multiple sentences had me rolling my eyes.
I really don't see how the description for this book correlates to what is actually inside because It couldn't be further away from it. I just couldn't stand reading this anymore so I gave up at about 20%. I can't give a full review obviously as I haven't read the whole book but there are so many great books out there that I can't waste my time by reading this one.