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Review Quotes: "Bloody, lovely, and delectably dark, The Halls of the Dead will sink its teeth into you and leave its mark long after the end." - Michelle Wong, author of House of the Beast "Some of the most beautiful--and powerful--prose I've ever read. Three characters whose lives are utterly entwined, each wonderfully sympathetic as you come to know them and all they've endured, as you watch them stand in their power even when so much feels hopeless. A bloody, romantic, haunting story I can guarantee I will never, ever forget. This is THE necromancer love story, period." - Sarah Glenn Marsh, author of Our Rogue Fates "Hallow...steeps this atmospheric gothic fantasy in grief, desire, and the moral costs of loving the dead.... [She] renders her necromancers' world with intimate eeriness, and the novel's nuanced treatment of grief provides a weighty emotional core." - Publishers Weekly Publisher Marketing: A queer, gothic horror romance set in a necromancy-tinged London, sure to entrance fans of The Death of Jane Lawrence and Mexican Gothic. London, December 1849- Irene Shallcross Haley has dedicated her life to necromancy, a forbidden, reviled art that is passed along through sentient grimoires bound in human skin. With her undead husband St. John--a marriage of kindred spirits and platonic convenience--she has been protecting the knowledge of generations of witches that came before her. Like any magic, it has come at a cost: her reputation, her relationship with her sister, and her soul. But when Irene's love, Agnes, is hanged for witchcraft, Irene refuses to let Agnes be one more thing that is taken from her. A true resurrection has not been achieved in two thousand years, but Irene is determined. With the help of St. John, Irene bangs on the doors of the Halls of the Dead, demanding the third part of their triumverate back...or did she? Because the Agnes that awakens comes with both a hunger for raw flesh and a malignant ghost tied to her soul. Necromancy is the art of saying no--no, I won't let you go; no, I won't let you be destroyed--and Irene's work is not yet done. She must find a way to bring Agnes back to her true self, she must navigate her feelings for her resurrected lover as well as St. John, and she must do all of this without catching the attention of Sir Silas Underhill, the man who sentenced Agnes to death. Death is not the end of love. But Irene may realize it can actually be the beginning. Review Citations:
Contributor Bio:Hallow, S M S. M. Hallow's short story "How to Stay Married to Baba Yaga" was included in the Locus 2023 Recommended Reading List and anthologized in The Year's Best Fantasy Volume 3, edited by Paula Guran. Other short work can be found in Baffling Magazine, Seize the Press, Taco Bell Quarterly, and We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2023. Her novella, How to Survive This Fairytale, was published in January 2025 and received a special edition in Rainbow Crate, a book box exclusively for queer books. The Halls of the Dead is Hallow's debut full-length work. |
