THE TWISTED ONES released to much acclaim in 2019. T. Kingfisher follows up this success with THE HOLLOW PLACES, which may be my favorite horror novel of 2020 thus far --- a huge compliment in a year that has brought so many solid releases in the genre.

Kara is recently divorced and eager to throw herself into something new. She grew up helping her Uncle Earl run his extremely odd tourist stop --- the Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities and Taxidermy --- in rural North Carolina. This name does not even come close to describing the things that have been crammed into this multi-level museum. When he calls to let Kara know that he could use a hand and has her old room ready for her, she jumps at the opportunity.

"[THE HOLLOW PLACES] may be my favorite horror novel of 2020 thus far... Kingfisher has created her own highly original and deeply disturbing work of horror that I will not easily forget."

Uncle Earl had been putting off getting knee surgery for years, but now, with Kara there to run the show, he is able to do just that. In a bit of a trade-off, he moves in with her mom as he recovers while she lives in and operates the museum. She immediately rekindles her friendship with Simon, an equally eccentric, gay young man who works at the coffee shop next door to the museum. The two of them enjoy coffee, adult beverages after work, and discussing the many oddities of her uncle’s establishment.

One day, as she is moving around various exhibits, Kara locates a rather large hole in the wall. When she steps through the opening, she is transported to a place that defies logic and the laws of physics. Of course, Simon agrees to join her for further inspection into this hole that they refer to as their own version of Narnia. It will not be long before all joking over what actually exists on the other side ceases completely.

Their first exploration is both an enlightening and a frightening experience. They enter a long hallway with numerous doors, one of which opens to a room with a dead body lying on a bed. As they move deeper into this parallel universe, they come to an area filled with fog and willow trees, most of which are floating in the air like mini-islands in the sky.

In addition, there are beings and creatures in this other world that defy explanation. Kara swears that she sees something she can only describe as a trilobite made of skin. They find bunkers on the other side, all of which potentially could lead them into other parallel universes. Some of them house what looks like military gear and journals that describe truly horrific things. They are aware that they are far from home when they come across a copy of the Bible that is totally different from the version they know. One of the most horrifying visions Kingfisher cooks up is a school bus where the young passengers physically seem to be a part of the seats themselves.

Kara and Simon realize that they desperately need to get back to their own reality before they are killed in some nightmarish way. They find a man named Sturdivant standing in a body of water and have a weird conversation with him before they realize that his lower half is a puddle of goo floating within the water. Without giving away any more details, Kara and Simon do make it back to the museum. However, they are not able to leave what they experienced behind them as they suffer from both evening and waking nightmares, as well as sleepwalking episodes and PTSD from their time on the other side.

It is worse for Kara since she is living inside the museum, and she begins to see and hear things out of the ordinary. The first true sign that the land of the willows has found her is when she and her uncle's cat, Beau, hear scratching at the door to their room one night, only to find that one of the artifacts --- an albino raccoon --- is the culprit. This is just the beginning as the other world continues to bleed into Kara's reality, making for one of the most intense and bizarre horror reads I have ever encountered.

In the afterword, Kingfisher makes reference to two classic horror short stories: "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood and "White People" by Arthur Machen. Having recently reread the former, I can see where some of the otherworldly imagery came from. I had all sorts of comparisons going through my mind as I read this stellar novel, including Jeff VanderMeer’s ANNIHILATION, C.S. Lewis’ THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA and Stephen King’s THE MIST. Still, Kingfisher has created her own highly original and deeply disturbing work of horror that I will not easily forget.