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War on Halloween

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This Halloween, hell comes to Laurel City. Laurel City doesn't celebrate Halloween and Mike Dawson wants to change that. New in town, he's going to throw the biggest Halloween party the town has ever seen. But Reverend David Laurel stands in his way. Laurel is a direct descendant of the founder of the town, and Halloween is more than just a celebration of sin. It is a direct attack on control of his city, and he won't surrender it without a fight. Mike and his children are drawn into a feud over the holiday, and Mike won't back down despite pressure from Laurel. And then the killings start. The town is thrown into chaos by brutal murders, and Laurel blames them on the sinful holiday. But Laurel has a secret. Deep in his church lies an ancient book, bound in red leather. It contains terrible power, written in an inhuman language. Reverend Laurel will do anything to stop Halloween. Including summoning demons. The question isn't if Laurel City will have a Halloween. The question is if the town will survive it.

338 pages, Paperback

Published July 26, 2020

48 people are currently reading
153 people want to read

About the author

Robbie Dorman

19 books88 followers
Robbie Dorman believes in horror. Conquest is his first novel. When not writing, he's podcasting, playing video games, or petting cats. He lives in Texas with his wife, Kim.

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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
Profile Image for Richard K. Wilson.
752 reviews130 followers
October 23, 2021
With this title, cover art and the synopsis; I thought now this sounds great! Don't let all that fool you......NOTHING original here. Cheezy, and very predictable....save your money. Sorry, in fact skip it.


Well, this was such a HUGE disappointment! If you take 'Footloose', "John Carpenters The Fog", and mixin the X-Files (shit, they even refer to 'calling the X Files) in the last 5 pages, and mix into a boiling pot......this is "The Book" that is talked about in this book. Here it is in a nutshell:
Police chief from another small town uproots both his teenaged son and daughter after losing their mother in an accident, and the dad causing some 'major uproar' in the police headquarters!

They move into another small town with secrets revolving around 'the church and minister own this town, and they always have.....!" Like in Footloose, only the holiday of Halloween is banned because it is 'Pure evil, and it is Satan's Day!"

Mike the new police officer and his 14 yr. old daughter Marion are HALLOWEEN Geeks! and are planning on having the first (and only celebration) in forever town Halloween Party in the communitiy center. Uh, oh! (yeah, right! How original was this idea?) 🤣😱🤦‍♂️🎃

Senior bother joins the LYE (church kids group at their school) to become part of the in crowd Football Team. And then he is suddenly controlled by the Minister. Oh, there is a 'very creepy red 'leather?' bound book' that is kept behind not one, but 2 heavy doors in the 2 dirt basement under the church!! lol. Okay, now we have the other Carpenter movie; "Prince of Darkness".

Dad falls for the only black lady with some brains it seems, and they fall in love and 'go steady', and while on a date Mike's house is spray painted with racist and homophobic words and comments....hmmm. That was original....lol. NOTHING ever happens that is ever scary or gory, and what little does happen takes almost 275 pages.

Halloween arrives.
A LITTLE tiny bit of creepy 'demon monsters' try to take over the town, in a fog.
One of the kids see the ghost of their mother......
Story ends, with the book winning over.
Oh, yeah then the ghost of the Dad comes for a 'wanna be steal of the scene from the movie "Ghost" wiht Patrick Swayze.

Cannot recommend......skip it!
2.5 🤔🙀.🎃
Profile Image for Ash.
208 reviews15 followers
December 13, 2021
Let me preface this by saying, Robbie Dorman has a new fan. My only regret is not reading this author sooner.

This was such a fun read and exactly what I was looking for pre-Halloween. This trope is one of my favorites: a religious town that worships something other than your typical bible, and that something conjures things that go bump in the night. Admittedly, the entire town in this book isn't crazy religious, but it is what the town was founded on. And so, there are still quite a few followers and everyone else is just along for the ride.

Could the author have upped the creep and gore factor? Probably. But I was so busy enjoying the book it wasn't something I cared all that much to consider. Also, I have to give a special thank you to the author. The writing style made this book such a pleasure to read compared to many in the genre. So, thank you for that.

All that's left to do now is to buy another book from this author. I'm thinking next up will either be Splatterfest or The Split Circle.
Profile Image for Alexis.
412 reviews4 followers
October 18, 2021
This was such a fun Halloween read. This book is a blend of coming of age, occultist worship, and the themes you found in Footloose. A town where Halloween has been outlawed is turned upside down when a family who loves the holiday decides to move on in. This book is everything that’s good about a spooky October book. The characters are all really well developed and no superfluous Tagalongs. The story was also really well created, no words were wasted. I loved the cadence of the novel as well, all of the events happened at such a great entertaining clip. The end set us up for a hell of a sequel. I really hope we get one soon because I ate this book right up!
Profile Image for David Veith.
565 reviews3 followers
April 25, 2023
Overall a good read. The pace was good, and kept moving really well in general. The characters were good, and not too much details given, which was ok. Enough to let you know their story. I thought the dads background about being a cop and having to move would have been more. He just blew the whistle on some crooked cops though, not like he did anything bad. You think he would have been given a promotion, but instead has to move? I get it, but there were better ways to make that happen. I feel the book was lacking a little depth though. You meet new characters, but then you do not hear about them again, or if you do it is just a bit here and there. Also hard to tell how much time has passed between chapters. Seems to jump a bit. Same with the flashbacks. They were fun, but at 1st since they were not broken up well, hard to tell that was what was even happening. Overall a fun read, but a bit lacking.

Spoilers below.

Think Footloose but with Halloween and the church summons demons to deal with the people wanting to celebrate. A new cop moves to town, and as I said above the reasons are a bit weak as to why. The town is run by a family that founded the town, and run the church. Turns out they think they are worshiping God, but it is actually the Devil. Based on the description of the book they use, they should have been able to see that lol. Also the language they use when reading it does not sound like anything other than demon talk, so there was that too haha. The story had a lot of fun characters, but did not use them to the full potential I feel. Same with some of the characters back stories, they could have more of an influence on the story. Overall this was a fun read, but felt like it was just touching the surface. The end was sort of eh, and the last bit was left open for a second book maybe, but again felt eh.
Profile Image for Jordan Anderson.
1,742 reviews46 followers
October 31, 2020
Spooktober 2020 Book 28

As someone who personally suffered under the ridiculous belief that Halloween was an evil thing and was not to be celebrated, I can definitely get behind the storyline on War On Halloween. And reading it on October 30 also helped.

I enjoyed it for what it was: typical indie horror. Not necessarily a bad thing (mass produced horror in 2020 has sucked anyways), but it’s also not totally amazing either.

War on Halloween was entertaining and had some great moments but, with more than it’s fair share of typos, and some parts that just didn’t work (off duty cops carrying like infinite ammo? Same cops not really being freaked out when they see something unexplainable?) it kind of fizzled.

Again, nothing terrible with this one...it’s a quick, fast paced read...however this book probably won’t ever go down as a classic .
Profile Image for Ziggy Nixon.
1,149 reviews37 followers
September 29, 2025
Halloween is Evil. And that is evil with a capitol E.

An open letter to Robbie Dorman:
Dear Robbie (is it ok if I call you Robbie?). Whereas I thoroughly enjoy your books - and I believe that "War on Halloween" now makes it 4 books I've read from your collection since the beginning of 2025, all of which I've thoroughly enjoyed, too - we have to come to some understanding about the levels of stress that you are causing me. This is particularly true when you include anyone representing the hordes of faux Christians in the United States (or, I guess, anywhere) that just make my blood boil. This was especially the case with your outstanding "Words of Christ in Red" that had me ready to draw arms (and legs, torsos, and faces as well) where everyone of the villainous, self-righteous scum in that one deserved exactly what they got.

Mark my words. This won’t end. God has marked your sins.

Now I realize that the situation is slightly different in "War" but my involvement, connection, and/or sympathy with the characters that are being discriminated against by those that embrace nothing to do with the man called Jesus was no less absorbing. I'm not sure if I got all that straight but I think it should be pretty clear. Look, I'll be honest: I am someone that the google is telling me is part of the "22% of U.S. adults who describe themselves as atheists (but) say they believe there is some “higher power or spiritual force” in the universe." To be clear: I do not and will not subscribe to any religious dogma that has been created and/or invented by man - meaning especially the males of our species - primarily for what is obviously a means of controlling the masses. Particularly when so much of it has been plagiarized from the very people they all tried to chase out of town for the last 2000 years plus.

Halloween is … a gateway to the occult, to sin, to the Devil himself.

Oh and let's not forget about making a buck or a few billion while we're at it, you know, being told how to live, who to live with, and how to use our genitals in an acceptable way. Or in the case of this story, somehow getting away for generations with thinking your faith gives you free reign over a given city, or the U.S. Constitution, or however many laws we saw being broken in this story, not the least of which was some brutal murders, including of nearly a whole store full of puppies and kittens. Still, if we want to continue this theological debate, as a scientist by trade, I'll also admit that a lot of stuff just fits together a little too well to be an accident and that makes me wonder. Shame man keeps fucking it all up or we might be able to have a mature debate about it, huh? However, the return of however, I also think if we poor homo sapiens in our barely upright postures could even conceive of whatever is out there (in here, whatever), our brains would turn to goo and leak immediately out of our skulls. So, um… Amen. Yeah.

We founded this town, and I will not allow pagan deviltry in it.

Back to the book so we can avoid my next point (namely, if you stick your noses in my politics, I want you taxed to heaven and back! Oops…): Dorman has once again created a multi-player cast that really embraces all the good and the bad of humanity. On the good side, he's got some very strong LBGTQ+ representation going on, as well as truly shocking instances of blatant racism, too. But holy shit, his depiction of the LYE boys and their on-going indoctrination into the misogynistic beliefs being handed down through the ages couldn't be more spot on (how have women not just taken large sharp objects to these people yet?). I remember being invited to join one of the local "young Christian" organizations in town (this time there was no swimming pool nor Village People involved) and after just one visit thinking "so this is what professional brain-washing looks like?" The sheer peer pressure and even mind control tricks being flung about was nauseating. Now see? I'm getting all worked up again! Stop it Dorman!

They weren’t a congregation anymore. They were a rabble, waiting for orders.

Book stuff, book stuff: I really liked the core family, where Mike the still-grieving, honest cop of a dad was AOK in my book and I really did enjoy Goth girl Marion's role in things (as well as her friend Cara, who seemed to be an utter joy). Sure, I wanted to take an iron skillet to Daniel's head throughout, but sometimes kids have to work through the difficult bits by doing the dumbest things possible before they learn. At least he had the decency to feel bad about doing bad things - as well he should have - but Holy Communion Wafers on a Stick, when your bibbel study group starts summoning demons with your blood, it's time to get the hell out of Dodge. I guess that's kind of a spoiler, but let's just say if you've also read Chuck Tingle's "Camp Damascus", you'll definitely see a trend in just how far the "church" is willing to go to keep holy things like power and wealth in their own clammy hands.

I have spent my entire life studying two holy Books. One of them has led to nothing. No results. Empty words. The other—it has led to this.

So yeah, another very good effort from you, Mr. Dorman, but I am again left with a growing frustration about all this fascism disguised as faith we see in the world. I guess though that means you've done your job that you're able to get your readers so worked up about it but realize as well our frustration about not being able to reach into these pages and punch the ever-living daylights out of these bastards when that's really what they need at the end of the day. But if I add up all the books that I've read this year alone - who knew that entering a 50 states / 50 horror books reading challenge would bring me to so many books with this theme? - well, I guess I can't dump all the blame at your feet. Hells bells, we even have books featuring the latest version of deadly plagues (COVID T-3000!!!) where it's been very clear that some people would rather rapture others before helping them out. So inspiring…

It’s in the Bible. Over and over again. Men are to be emboldened by God’s Word.

Anyway, last question: would it be possible to borrow that Hockey Mascot costume for a while? Now THAT would be a tale about smiting for the ages! Here hypocrit-ty! HERE HYPOCRIT-TY-TY!!!
27 reviews1 follower
October 12, 2021
Really good,...but...

Ok,...I wasn't expecting much from this novel and was pleasantly surprised. It started off with me thinking I already knew how it would end,..and I was right. But it was very entertaining and nicely done. The ending I didn't expect at all. Of course the only problem I'm having now is it set up for another book. Will he write it or just leave it hanging.
Profile Image for Kimberly N.
140 reviews10 followers
October 2, 2021
Great book! The themes in it hook you into the story. This isn’t just a book about Halloween and someone’s love of it. This is a book about family and the tests people go through. The book builds to an emotional end. The use of good vs evil sets a tone for the whole book. People have to make choices. And it isn’t just religious good vs evil. Standard bigotry and hate enter the mix. But when it boils down this book is about love. And Halloween.
Profile Image for Steven.
649 reviews54 followers
October 9, 2021
Fun book! This was my first title by this author and I really enjoyed it. There were some different scenes in it that made wonder what might have influenced the author while writing it. Some parts gave me that Silent Hill, Phantoms (Koontz), and Stranger Things vibe. I would definitely read more by this author and recommend this title.
Profile Image for Stephanie E..
Author 7 books17 followers
October 27, 2025
Laurel City seems like a sleepy religious town. But even the most pious places have a dark secret.

Oh, and they hate Halloween.

War on Halloween is like a typical Halloween story in some ways and in other ways it isn’t. We get the fun Halloween theme and scary monsters, but Robbie Dorman also takes things up one hundred notches.

Instead, Dorman focuses on the actual scares in the real world. Religious and government corruption, mass manipulation, and how far a family is willing to go to exercise power and control.

I loved this book. It was different from what I was expecting but I still loved it and it was the perfect Halloween read.

I did take off one star. Unfortunately many dogs died. I can handle humans dying but not animals. There were also some character backstories I thought was unnecessary.

Otherwise, I highly recommend reading War on Halloween for your spooky October read, or for any time of the year!
Profile Image for Russell Holbrook.
Author 31 books88 followers
November 29, 2024
I had so much fun reading this book! I liked all of the main characters, the villains were super evil, and there was a good message about the importance of acceptance and tolerance that wasn't delivered in too much of heavy-handed way. I also really enjoyed the religious horror element. A wonderful, fun, fast-paced novel with heart and a sincere love for Halloween!
130 reviews
November 1, 2020
Halloween

I started this book the week before Halloween, finishing it late Halloween night. What a great idea to read it that week. I really enjoyed the story, it was mysterious and exciting.
534 reviews10 followers
October 18, 2021
This was an awesome book I felt it a bit slow in the beginning but felt like something would happen and it did. And when it did it exploded. Great characters, plot, emotions. and of course the ending Can't wait for the next installment.
38 reviews
October 29, 2025
Good Halloween Read

A very good story that centers around a Halloween party on Halloween night and the town's church. The church is led by a pastor that will do whatever it takes, even going against God, to stop the town from recognizing and celebrating Halloween.
1 review
September 10, 2020
Enjoyable read

The story was entertaining and the characters were well developed. Ends on a cliffhanger , so looking Im forward to the sequel.




1 review
August 27, 2021
Sorry

After the Bubba thing It was time for me to stop reading. Maybe I’ll pick it back up another day.
Profile Image for Norman Miller.
Author 32 books12 followers
October 20, 2021
Halloween must be saved at all costs, especially when religious zealots try to end it! I only had one real issue with the book, but it would be a spoiler so I won't say what it is here.
Profile Image for Torylee Abrams.
377 reviews16 followers
August 6, 2022
This book was fantastic. I love love loved the storyline. I would love to read a sequel and see what happens. Definitely would suggest this to my horror lover friends!
19 reviews
October 31, 2022
Good read for Halloween

This was a good story. It did not end the way I thought it would. The ending left the door open for a sequel.
10 reviews
April 28, 2024
A simple but thrilling story about a small town controlled by righteous and religious folk who are not as godly as you think. It was an easy read and very fun!
Profile Image for Alec.
1 review
February 17, 2025
I had a really fun time reading this book! There was some plot hangers on random chapters I felt like that you find out later in the book. But I thought it was a great time! And I love Halloween!
151 reviews3 followers
November 1, 2023
This is my second Robbie Dorman novel, and he's yet to disappoint me. With War On Halloween, widower Mike Dawson moves his family moves to the seemingly perfect Laurel City. Perfect until he discovers that the local church doesn't allow Halloween to be celebrated. Instead of following along with the Church's decree, Mike takes things into his own hands and organizes a Halloween party for the community that wants to celebrate the holiday. Then all hell breaks loose. That's an easy enough synopsis for a story with a lot going on from the POVs of police officer Mike and his two kids, Daniel and Marion.

The story is simple enough, but the execution is great. I cared about all of our protagonists. I've seen some readers complain about the lack of gore, but it's there, just maybe not described to a splatterpunk degree. I wouldn't say the story is overly scary or creepy, but I enjoyed the reveal of what is menacing the town. One bit I did find odd is how Mike is at an indescribably gory crime scene, but it doesn't faze him enough to not host a Halloween party with gory displays.

As a Halloween-centric story, it is quite good, though our Church villains' way for fighting against the holiday is hypocritically appropriate for the holiday. How they don't see hypocrisy is typical. This a fun book, and if you missed it this Halloween, then pick it up next year.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5. Fear Nerd says, "Check it out!"
31 reviews
December 31, 2022
FUN. I love Halloween, and I love books that include Halloween. This read very much like a movie to me, it was fast and fun, kind of the like the holiday itself.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews

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