The Ghosts of Dark Hollow

The Dark Hollow Chronicles #1

by R. Saint Claire

(The Dark Hollow Chronicles #1)

A stranger arrives in the rural community of Dark Hollow, and the ghosts that have only existed in legends and folklore, now reveal themselves as vicious and vengeful spirits-made-flesh.

Seventeen-year-old Hannah Gares finds herself inexplicably drawn to the wealthy billionaire, Linford Cravens, who reclaims his family's crumbling Gothic mansion known as Blackshire Manor.

While her small community suffers more ghost attacks, Hannah teams up with Sebastian, the dashing and dangerous heir to the Blackshire fortune. Together they dig into the centuries-old mystery, and in the process, Hannah will uncover the truth about herself.


Cover design: Consuelo Parra
Model: Mjranum-stock.deviantart

Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Paranormal, Ghosts, Gothic, Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy

208 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 11, 2018

About the author

Regina writes adult and young adult fiction, but always with a dark flair. Writing honors include a Watty Award for best horror novel and multiple screenwriting awards, including a Webby Honoree. Regina is also the contributing editor of the bestselling Local Haunts: A HorrorTube Anthology. Find Regina, and her alter-ego Batilda, at her BookTube channel, Regina's Haunted Library, and on her blog RSaintClaire.com.

Reviews

[Andrea Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ghosts of Dark Hollow is an amazing read. Right from the get go, R. Saint Claire waists no time in pulling the reader in with action that doesn't stop throughout the entire tale. While yes it deals with teenagers, and typically that means teenage angst and love, the author did wonderfully to keep the book on the spirits without glossing over the issues of highschool. I absolutely recommend this book, the first in the Dark Hollow Chronicles, as it goes about the life and recent awakening of spirits in Dark Hollow. They are angry, and violent, and only one person can stop them...for now anyway.

The book follows Hannah primarily, with help from her friend Olivia, her cuz Sebastian, and others who work to figure out why the ghosts of Dark Hollow (apparently a well known 'fact') are suddenly violent and angry.

This is a quick read that keeps you engrossed through the whole thing. I couldn't put this book down!

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

I'm a sucker for a good ghost story. Unfortunately, this was not it. It skips around from one character to the next without any real plot to connect anything. The grammar is atrocious, and at times makes it almost unreadable. I made it through about a quarter of the book before I realized I had no idea what was going on and really didn't care.

[Jennifer Wrage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: I won a free copy from goodreads.com.

This book had me from page one. I read it in one sitting! It has a fast pace and keeps you moving. Scary, but not "gross." I would recommend it to high school through adults. It is not appropriate for younger children because of some mild adult content. I look forward to reading more in the series!

[Elizabeth Sagewood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this first book in the series. It’s the first full length story I’ve read by this author and I’m hooked. This was very much a cozy haunting story, much like a Darcy Coates book, with a little twinge of romance added. Fans of Coates I think would enjoy this book. 3.5 stars

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good

This was a great casual read. The plot was good but it could have been better at the climax. It was to short of a climax, maybe taking three pages and then was over. I would still read the next in the series though.

[britney frazier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

I only did the free part, but oh my gosh. I am now about to get the book, worth it.

[Betty Humble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind grabbing

This book started a little slow, but then grabbed you in just like an unnatural source and keep you there

[Jacob Cherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this author!!! Plus I love her YouTube channel! Definitely a must read for horror fans! Well done!

[Ken Poirier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark Hollow is a rich vivid world full of Soap-Opera-esk characters and Monster-of-the-Week entities. As if the small town and family drama wasn't enough for our main character Hanna, she has to deal with cursed ghosts of both corporal and incorporeal form.

Love triangles are abound. As a YA Novel, the teen love stories are beautifully woven into the main plot and the adult love story is a nice break from the adventure.

While there is a love triangle in the adult relationships, in the early version I read, it was less developed with one of the participants not even making an appearance worth note and felt more like a thought of the character Melisa. This certainly depreciated some of the dramatic effect this sub-plot was supposed to achieve.

If the character are at Blackshire Manor, then you're in for a good time. The chapters exploring this spooky old castle were among my favorites.

The character of Sebastian is a genuinely vile young lad, that I can best describe as a teenage Christian Grey. He was written so realistically, I seethed at his every word.

The Ghost Chasers were iconicly funny. Always falling one step short of being use to any of the other characters and exacerbating the teenage drama.

If you like Supernatural, Heaven, or any of those types of shows, you'll be sure to enjoy The Ghosts of Dark Hollow. I look forward to reading the sequel soon.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won a copy of this book and I really enjoyed it. The descriptions were so well written that I could almost see the places described. The characters almost seemed to be alive. I enjoyed the twists and turns in the story but was a bit surprised at the ending. A good read for all.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks for the complimentary copy to read and review. Great plot and character development and excellent writing. Good to see some new offerings in the paranormal genre!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written book that grabs you from the beginning. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it!

[Severind Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to enjoy this book more, and it certainly wasn't bad. But there were some aspects that I just couldn't quite get past.

The premise was good and the book started out fairly strong. Apart from the fact that this book jumps around a lot, and with no warning. It could be the formatting on kindle that caused this (it seemed to default on endless scroll, which is not my usual preference, but I grew too tired of changing it given how sporadically I read the book), but one second I was reading about Hannah, and then the very next paragraph I was somewhere completely different, reading from the perspective of Adam. Whenever this happened, I'd get lost or confused, and I'd have to go back and reread that bit to see exactly where the transition occurred, because there was no space between paragraphs to indicate that a shift in point of view had happened in the first place.

In addition to this, I just felt that at certain points, the book was rushed. It skipped around quickly between point of views and the plot, that sometimes I had a difficult time connecting all of it. There were so many names that I occasionally forgot who was who, and I feel that part of that is because the characters weren't always fully fleshed out. I got a basic premise of each character, but enough substance to really make me care about any of them, or to make them memorable. That's not to say the characters were bad. I did find a few to be rather tropey, but that wasn't the issue; I expected that. It was that I kind of wanted more from them, but didn't receive more.

Not that it matters, but I can't tell if this is YA or adult? That has no basis on my review, but I am genuinely curious, because we follow a teenager and an adult, and there are themes present in books for both age groups. Is this what they call new adult? I have no idea. I don't recall when this was published (I suppose I could look it up), but it reminded me quite a bit of the YA books so common around the Twilight era. But with some slightly more adult themes?

Unfortunately, my biggest issue was the grammatical issues. I believe this was self-published, and as such, likely was never put through a rigorous editing process. But sometimes I couldn't help but feel that the novel was only written once, looked over briefly, and then...published. Most books - even traditionally published books - have some kind of error in them. But this book had several, which ultimately wasn't a huge issue, but it clearly left some impression for me to bring it up here. It also did a lot of telling instead of showing, which isn't always a bad thing. But sometimes I really wanted more! I wanted to see the séance, not hear about it after (especially as I think that was meant to be the climax? Or at least a pivotal moment in the story regarding critical information). I wanted to feel the atmosphere, not be told about it. If some points were fleshed out a little more, I don't think this would have been an issue. There were a lot of critical elements to the story (namely, those which connected Hannah and her family to the supernatural) that didn't quite make sense, or that were sprung on us without much of an explanation.

Again, not a bad book, and I do think this book had promise. History, haunted manors, ghosts? It's gothic lit, but modern day. And that's not to say I won't continue with the series. But it's not without its flaws, which unfortunately made a larger impression than did the rest of the novel.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a typical gothic novel. The only thing unique about it is modern times.
It's also not particularly scary either. There are ghosts and they attacked people. It's expected.
I can't say I liked the characters much either. All the teens were Hollywood: over-sexed, over-stereotyped, and juvenile delinquents.
There are a few side stories that are only half-told. Both our heroine Hannah and her father have a nemesis, but we don't really know why. They walk on stage, say their lines and it's like half must have been edited out.
I did like the author's style of writing. Up until it started getting into the kink stuff, I would have said it was a fun Halloween story.
Incest is a popular gothic theme and it wasn't the fact that it was in the story, it was more of how it was presented that was a turnoff.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this through a promotional giveaway, but it will in no way affect my review. The good: The book is a quick read, can be read in one sitting, as it features brief chapters that are easy to breeze through. And instead of wasting several chapters giving tons of not always necessary background details, this book plops you right into the story and builds the plot little by little as it goes along. The not so good: The characters are all fairly one-note and often too trope-ish. There's also quite a number of different ghosts/stories going on within it, none of which are ever fully fleshed out. Still, for an author without a lot of writing credits behind her, this story was decently written and promises better things with more experience.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good creepy little read...looking forward to the next one.

[brenda schleuning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na

I didn't think it was really that good. Not much of a plot.not all that scary. Thought it would be better.

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ghosts of Dark Hollow is a horror novel featuring an old Gothic mansion, mysterious strangers, and vengeful ghosts that have come back from the dead. The story is told from the points of view of Hannah Gares and her father both of whom suffered a terrible loss when Hannah's mother died. They live in a community with plenty of ghost stories, the most famous of which has its roots in the old Gothic Blackshire Manor still standing today. Hannah and her friend Olivia spend their days exploring the ground and the reportedly haunted house. Their adventures eventually take a very dangerous and unexplained turn when an evil presence in the woods attacks them. This is just one in a series of violent attacks by ghosts in fleshly form wreaking havoc on the town, randomly murdering residents through violent means. In the meantime, after sitting vacant for some time, Linford Cravens arrives in town one day to claim the manor as his. Sebastian, his brooding and overly charming relative and heir to the Blackshire Manor, arrives as well. Hannah finds herself strongly attracted to Sebastian. They spend their days flirting and exploring the mansion and its grounds together. Their adventures lead them down a path to uncovering family secrets and Hannah's true legacy. For me, this was a good, well developed story all around. I did want a bit more of the legacy and family history.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author via Voracious Readers Only.

[Buttercupp77 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed reading this novel. I think the author did a very good job of setting the story and of developing fairly human characters, for the most part. The plot moves along at a good pace, and was reasonably logically developed.

I definitely see that there are areas where the author could have done more: in investigating some of the historical characters, in fleshing out characters in the present (what was there was good - more can be done to make them come alive more vividly. For example, in Hannah's feelings of alienation from her peers - there's room for a lot more emotion and angst, as well as history and explanation), in establishing a solid foundation for a series.

I found the ending to be too pat, and that the denouement happened too quickly. I think something more drawn-out, with more honest reactions from the characters to some pretty wrenching revelations would have been a better gut-punch to the reader. There are some intriguing potential threads left dangling (not unexpected in the launch of a series) that I wish had been better explored, even if they're not the focal point of this installment.

In all, this is a good start for a series. I hope it will develop in depth as the author continues with it.

I received a copy of this book through Voracious Readers Only.

[Poulomi Dutta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book on wattpad so maybe my review doesn't count for the published version. Nonetheless I'm here to share my thoughts on this book.
The book chronicles the strange happenings in Dark Hollow with the advent of a stranger in the locality, who takes possession of the century old Gothic mansion known as the Blackshire Manor, an old, crumbling edifice with a notorious history. The story is told from the angle of Hannah Gares and her father Adam Gares who becomes central to the mystery of the Dark Hollow.
In one word, this book is unputdownable!
The plot though not inventive keeps one engaged with its twists made successful by the author's incredible writing. The characters are well-defined with depth and personality, a rarity these days. The supporting characters like Linford Cravens, Sebastian Cravens are perplexing and keeps one questioning their true design throughout the book. The author successfully inspires the spine-tingling sensation that had been promised. My only qualm about it is that the book reaches climax rather abruptly. Otherwise, this is a perfect book to pick up on a stormy afternoon.

[Emily W.]

Won this in a giveaway on 4/28/18
(Which will not affect whatever score I give it in the end)
And since I have won it by giveaway it's only fair that I review it after I have read the book on my kindle.

Review to come!! ^_^

Before Thoughts:
You should know that horror isn't particularly my favorite genre, but I am willing to help provide feedback on this book. Because who knows, maybe I'll enjoy it. It's better to be open to new things than just shut them out.

Review:
Read on: _/_/18

Final Thoughts:

Plot:

Character(s):

Recommends to:

Hope you enjoyed my review!! Thanks for Reading!! ^_^
And go catch that good book!! ^_^


Blog site

[Georgeanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I’m not the target audience, I really enjoyed this book. Hannah is a delightful character- even for a teenager! She’s an intelligent, artsy, kind of girl. While she does, sometimes, wish she were one of the popular crowd, she doesn’t try to change who she is to fit in. (The mom in me loves that!) The story was fun - a little mystery, a little scary, very little teen angst. Nicely written friendships and family interactions. And, I adore Sebastian. All that flirting, snarkiness, and attitude just to hide the sweet, insecure person he really is. So glad I stumbled across this book on Wattpad!

[Sarah Baethge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Hannah as she gets mixed up within the meddling of some actual ghosts that are haunting the town where her father is leading a theater troop. Events transpire where she gets blamed for the ghostly actions. As she tries to explain what is happening, she starts to become friends with a young man who does believe her. His family it turns out, has a long involved history of dealing with and trying to work against these same ghosts.
The characters in this story are enjoyable. Regina Saint Claire has even used some classic ghost stories as the basis for the particular ghosts in this story.

[Christine Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Beginning Of A Great Series

The author stated that this is based on actual ghost legends from the Delaware Valley in Pennsylvania. I can believe that. I know that region and the stories that go all the way into New York. The storyline is spot on and it's well written. Although there are a few spelling and grammar errors, there's nothing that will interfere with the enjoyment of an imaginative, well designed story. I'm certainly looking forward to reading the second book in this series.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy to read and review.
Nicely written, and entertaining book. It is a bit creepy, but not so it'll give you nightmares.
I really enjoyed the location, and it was described very well.
Well developed characters and relationships.
Good plot, and though I thought I had everything all figured out, there was a small twist at the end that I didn't see coming.
Well done!!

[C. McIntosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a FABULOUS book! It is engaging with tension, realistic characters and a splash of humour.

The plot is well thought and mysterious, the exposition tackled very well and the scenes are created strongly with enough for me to imagine myself.

I enjoyed my time with Hannah, Sebastian and the rest of them. I look forward to the next book in the series.

[Desiree Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this lovely book (with a cover thats not only gorgeous, but enjoyable to stroke with my finger tips) in a goodreads giveaway. I just finished it and can't wait to devour the next book in this series. The only thing I would add or change is to go into more detail with some things. Other than its fantastic. Perfect Autumn read to complete on a foggy morning.

[Maria Sorgie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely love everything about this book! I am a goth nut and this book and its characters took me on a wonderful adventure. I received a free copy from the author through Voracious Readers Only and am ordering many more as presents for my family.

[Vicky Quenault · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book. Good storyline and interesting twist I didn’t see coming.
Characters could have used a bit more development.
I received a complimentary copy from VRO in return for an honest review.

[Conny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great and creepy book, I loved it !!!
Can't wait for book 2. Please hurry ...