Time to jump into these finalists in this year’s SPFBO! I’m starting with The Hallows, because I have read Tinsley’s work and enjoyed it so I figured that it was a good starting point. I do enjoy the idea of a noir tale with battle nuns too, so here we go!
The Hallow serum was once sacred to the Auld Bloods. Used to gain access to their lost ancestral powers, now it is regulated and administered by the powerful Providence Company. Evolved from the echelons of the Auld Church, the company exists to maintain the balance between faith, science and politics.
But keeping the peace between humans and Auld Bloods isn’t easy. Taking Hallow comes at a price. Providence Company Assessor Cam must deal with backstreet bootleggers, burnt-out addicts and floating nuns that won’t stay on the ground.
When a string of Auld Blood deaths appear to have been caused by a corrupted batch of Hallow, Cam begins to suspect all may not be as it seems. Bodies are piling up. Someone is hiding something, and the consequences are becoming monstrous.
The Hallows is an urban fantasy that takes place in a noir-ish 1920s era city, where humans and Auld Bloods live together. Auld Bloods are essentially human, but when they take a drug called Hallow, it triggers ancestral powers in their blood. Hallow is extremely regulated by the Providence Company, who keeps several squads of ‘Assessors’ who keep the peace between Auld Bloods and humans. Camellia is a Sixer – when he takes Hallow, his senses become extremely heightened, which will hopefully help him investigate some horrible Auld blood deaths that have been linked to an illegal (and obviously bad) batch of Hallow.
I enjoyed The Hallows so much that I read it in two chunks. It was an easy book to get into, with prose that flowed really well and sucked me into this city and its different magical powers, floating nuns, secrets, and monsters. I would lay down with it at night promising a chapter before bed and end up reading until the wee hours because I didn’t want to stop.
Camellia and his cohort from the Assessor home base known as ‘The Garden’ (with monikers to match), Daffodil, Lavender, and Forget-me-Not were characters that were easy to root for. Even Forget-me-Not, who is more of a minor character in this story as a whole, had me doing some serious emoting over here.
The mystery itself kept me guessing up until the very end, which I always cherish in a mystery. I love to guess at bits and pieces, but when a mystery actually blindsides me, it makes it all the better.
I had a solid 8.5/10 stars of a good time with The Hallows. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who likes a noir mystery with a big scoop of superpowers involved.
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