Books › House of Hollow
House of Hollow
320 pages
A lush, rotting fairy tale about sisterhood, secrets, and the terrifying freedom of embracing the monster within.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like wandering into a beautiful, overgrown garden only to realize the flowers are feeding on something dead. It is a propulsive, dread-soaked descent into a modern fairy tale that masterfully balances lush aesthetics with visceral body horror. The narrative pulls you forward with the urgent grip of a thriller, yet the atmosphere remains thick, intoxicating, and deeply unsettling. You are immersed in a world of feral sisterhood and monstrous femininity, where the boundaries between the human and the otherworldly blur into something grotesque and gorgeous. It is perfect for readers who crave dark, sensory-rich prose and stories that explore the terrifying, liberating realization that you might not be the victim of the horror story, but the monster itself.
- Mood
- dread-soaked
- lushly grotesque
- unsettling
- claustrophobic
- Tone
- macabre
- urgent
- darkly enchanting
- eerie
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- monstrous femininity · feral sisterhood · the illusion of normalcy · reclaiming identity
- The writing
- The writing is visceral and sensory-rich, contrasting rotting, gruesome body horror with lush, intoxicating floral imagery.
- The arc
- The protagonist moves from a desperate clinging to suburban normalcy into a terrifying but liberating acceptance of her own monstrous truth.
- Who it's for
- Fans of dark, modern fairy tales who crave stories about fierce, complicated sisters and don't mind a healthy dose of beautiful gore.
Content notes
- body horror
- gore
- violence
- suicide
- self-harm
- abduction
About the book
Iris Hollow and her two older sisters are unquestionably strange. Ever since they disappeared on a suburban street in Scotland as children only to return a month a later with no memory of what happened to them, odd, eerie occurrences seem to follow in their wake. And they're changing. First, their dark hair turned white. Then, their blue eyes slowly turned black. They have insatiable appetites yet never gain weight. People find them disturbingly intoxicating, unbearably beautiful, and inexplicably dangerous.
But now, ten years later, seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow is doing all she can to fit in and graduate high school on time--something her two famously glamourous globe-trotting older sisters, Grey and Vivi, never managed to do. But when Grey goes missing without a trace, leaving behind bizarre clues as to what might have happened, Iris and Vivi are left to trace her last few days. They aren't the only ones looking for her though. As they brush against the supernatural they realize that the story they've been told about their past is unraveling and the world that returned them seemingly unharmed ten years ago, might just be calling them home.
Description from Open Library.
Books like House of Hollow
See why they match
Kingdom of The CursedKerri ManiscalcoA decadent, shadow-drenched descent into an opulent underworld where danger and desire are indistinguishable.
Book of NightHolly BlackA gritty, shadow-drenched descent into a magical underworld where every bad decision comes with a steep, bloody price.
The Lost SistersHolly BlackA dark, confessional letter exploring the quiet, devastating ways we betray the people we love most in order to survive.
Starling HouseAlix E. HarrowA dreamlike, eerie descent into a haunted legacy where a cynical outcast finally finds a home worth fighting for.
The Gilded OnesNamina FornaA brutal, blood-soaked feminist fantasy about girls who are treated as monsters deciding to become the nightmare their oppressors fear.
The Reappearance of Rachel PriceHolly JacksonA claustrophobic, twist-laden thriller that unravels the dark, paranoid reality behind a family's true-crime infamy.