Hollow Heathens by Nicole Fiorina
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
4/5
Synopsis:
A forbidden, timeless, and haunting love story.
Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Fallon who was taken far away from home shortly after she was born.
A home that held more than strange traditions and bizarre superstitions.
Twenty-four years later, she returned to Weeping Hollow, a town she’d only heard about in stories during restless nights under a marble moon, in the middle of the night to take care of her last living relative.
They called the nosy mortician a freakshow–a ghastly thing.
They said I couldn’t go near her.
Still, there was this aching pull to Fallon Grimaldi that I couldn’t escape.
A nostalgic pull as if we’d been here before.
Once upon a time, there lived a mysterious boy named Julian with a curse as old as centuries wrapped around his soul.
He was one of the four Hollow Heathens, the very dark creatures who caused the town’s people to live in fear.
And the Blackwell name was stained with darkness and death.
They called him a monster. Cold and hollow.
They said I shouldn’t go near him.
Still, there was this aching pull to Julian Blackwell that I couldn’t escape.
A nostalgic pull as if we’d been here before.
Review no spoilers:
This book took me a while to review; I felt reluctant to write it. I worried that once I put it down in writing, it would disappear from my mind.
I want to start this part by talking about how good and intriguing the setting and ambiance of this story were. I felt like I was inside of this mysterious magic land filled with puzzles and clues.
Nicole, the author, did an incredible job with this town; I was completely immersed in its magic.
The characters were just as unique and captivating as the scenery.
This is truly a real Halloween read, and even a year after I read it, I remember this story with so much love and excitement!
SPOILERS STARTING HERE
Oh my, where do i begin….
Julian Blackwell
A tortured man with an incurable curse that stole my heart, he was trapped in a cage and treated like scum.
You could tell that all he wanted was peace and happiness, but being submitted to the generational curse would make that completely impossible.
I felt so intrigued by Julian and his way of being; he wasn't evil, but he also wasn't like the rest of the heathens. He truly was a unique man, a lone wolf.
The way that his story developed was so painful to read; it felt so unfair for someone to go through so much, and that an entire town is not only okay with that torture but also kind of racist towards that coven.
The century-long disagreement between the Sacred Sea coven and the Norse Woods coven did a great job of adding an extra layer of chaos in the entire town. The idea of fear is heightened when the monsters live within the town.
This is a classic Romeo but with the extra spark of dark magic and curses that would become addicting to any reader.
When the story progresses and we can see more of Julian and his transformation from a broken, scary man into a loving and protective one, it becomes inevitable to fall for him. Fallon chose a good one, a kind one, but most importantly, one that will forever care for her.
Fallon Grimaldi
Fallon was always trying to run away from her past, but no matter how much she tried to run away from it, it would eventually come for her.
Her story is another tragic one, but it's one that makes more sense; she was always avoiding where she actually belonged, and this created a life full of hardships.
When she goes to visit her grandfather because he is sick, she is not only able to connect with a long-lost family member but also with her parents through the town they grew up in. Even though for the most part it was tried to be kept as a secret, she eventually knew the truth about her mother and father and how she was not only powerful but a mixture of the two covens that have had beef for centuries; she was the result of a forbidden love, and here she is repeating the story.
Before diving into her romance, I want to talk about how cool Falloon is. Not only is she in contact with the dead, but she also is a mortician. She is cool on the outside but dark on the inside. She left an impact on me because she felt rare but also like she was out of a horror movie. Her contact with her own mother was so scary; the way she saw the scarier parts of this town, things most didn’t see, was so intriguing, and also how she was forced to be part of another coven even though it all went against what she believed in.
Her romance with Julian was so passionate, so scary, and so deep. It was incredible to see how they matched so perfectly even in their differences. They were made for each other; she was meant to save him, and he saved her from herself. match made in heaven? or hell?
Extras
I enjoyed the evil characters (that i don’t want to spoil), the plot-twists got more macabre as the story progressed and it was so incredible to see it all unfold the way it did.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, this was a great, immersive, eerie read, filled with unique characters and with a plotline that would make you doubt your own moral compass. This story was a roller coaster of emotions and magic, and it truly made me shed a tear or 2 and scream in excitement!
I have to mention that the end was incredible, and it marked me forever; I cried over it, and it filled my heart with sadness and joy.
I truly recommend this book, i hope you enjoy it as much as i did
Favorite Quotes
“Do not fall in love with the moon, they said.
I fell in love anyway, and they would all laugh. They could not see her beauty. No one would believe me if I said the moon breathed life into me, that it was here, inside her, where I found myself again. They wouldn’t be able to understand. And no one could ever love her as deeply as I did. No one else was made for it, and those who were like me weren’t brave enough. No ordinary being was created to fall in love with the moon, only that of the aberrant. The strange. They said you couldn’t know the moon, touch it, kiss it, make love to it. You could only watch from the dark trenches of the earth, admire it from afar.
Yet, still, I fell in love with the moon. And she, too, fell in love with me.”
“She was everything I wasn’t, yet looked at me—to me—as if we were stitched by the same string.”
“You believe you’re gazing at the stars, when, in all reality, the entire galaxy is gazing at you.”
“To be a mortician was a calling. And there was beauty after death, like a wilted rose, petals stiff and fragile. Timeless and enchanting. A casted spell and oldest tale. Stories frozen in time within the ruins.”
“So, I kissed the night, got lost in his sky and suspended in his time. I
kissed the darkness too, as if it was all I knew because it was a part of him.”
