With the holiday season right around the corner, Kim Harrison is set to release a stunningly produced reference guide that will surely be cherished by anyone who calls themselves a fan of her Hollows saga (Dead Witch Walking; The Good, the Bad, and the Undead; Every Which Way But Dead; etc.).
When I heard that Kim was working on a guide to the Hollows earlier this year, I assumed that when it was eventually released, it would be something remarkable – she never does anything in half measures – but even with my high expectations going into it, The Hollows Insider just floored me. The amount of work – and conceptualization – that must’ve went into creating this book is just mind-boggling. Included within are highly sensitive documents from Inderland Security, interoffice memos from Kalamack Industries, excerpts from Takata’s lyric notebooks, newspaper clippings from the Hollows Gazette, in-depth character profiles, maps, spells, charm recipes, demon curses – and get this – the cover is glow-in-the-dark!
But it’s not just a hodgepodge of cool stuff – Harrison has structured it as a cohesive narrative. It all revolves around Devin Crossman, a popular blogger and columnist for the Hollows Gazette who begins investigating Rachel Morgan – after she inadvertently hit him with a spell that made his hair fall out! – and starts making connections (and wild assumptions) about Rachel’s relationship with Rachel, Ivy, Trent Kalamack, Piscary, etc. I don’t want to ruin any surprises here but the conclusion of Devin’s story is just perfect. Rachel Morgan fans should read this for the narrative alone!
But it’s so much more than a story about a blogger digging up the dirt on Rachel and company – it’s like a Hollows travel guide, local history book and unauthorized Rachel Morgan biography all rolled up into one. The Hollows Insider is literally saturated with information, trivia and laugh-out-loud irreverence – I’m still soaking it all in. Here is just a sampling of what you’ll find inside:
• After observing Rachel, Crossman writes in his journal: "I’ve watched this woman for three weeks. She’s a nutcase, living with a vampire in a church!! Bi? Or just clueless?”
• Top Ten Signs You’re in the Hollows: Your pizza delivery guy gets hazard pay.
• A laundry list of Jenks’ favorite curses include “Sweet mother of Tink,” “What in Tink’s knickers,” and “Son of a Disney whore,” to name just a few.
• Signs your roommate is into the Dark Arts – unidentifiable chunks of “meat” in the freezer she won’t let you put on the grill.
• Did you know that witches can remain fertile up to 100 years of age?
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more in here – Kalamack’s arrest warrant, a recipe for brimstone cookies, articles on ley line studies, were registrations, a section on the practical applications of earth charms…
I love how Harrison is expanding this series in unconventional ways – her graphic novel Blood Work offered up invaluable insights into Rachel and Ivy’s first meeting; she has written numerous Hollows short stories in anthologies like Unbound, Holidays Are Hell, Dates from Hell, etc; and now comes The Hollows Insider.
Paranormal fantasy backdrops rarely get mentioned in discussions about the most richly historied and vividly described fantasy realms of all time – Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Feist’s Midkemia, Silverberg’s Majipoor, etc. – but I think it’s high time to throw Harrison’s Hollows into the debate. This isn’t just Cincinnati with a few vampires and werewolves – what Harrison is attempting to achieve here is nothing short of monumental. The Hollows is like a grand scale sociological experiment, an exploration into what happens when dozens of sentient races cohabit together. It’s a tapestry of cultures and histories and political agendas and personalities that is just as immersive and fully realized as Middle-earth or Midkemia, granted on a much smaller scale.
The bottom line is this: Kim Harrison’s Hollows saga is one of the very best paranormal fantasy sagas on the shelves and anyone who enjoys reading these wildly entertaining novels featuring “gray” witch Rachel Morgan, living vampire Ivy Tamwood, and company MUST experience The Hollows Insider. Like I wrote earlier, this is a book that will be absolutely cherished by fans of Kim Harrison’s series. And did I mention that it’s got a glow-in-the-dark cover?
Paul Goat Allen has been a full-time book reviewer specializing in genre fiction for the last two decades and has written thousands of reviews for companies like Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and BarnesandNoble.com. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
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I cannot wait to get this!!! When I first read about this, it seemed so far away that I put it out of my mind. I cannot believe it is almost here. I will have to figure out a way to hide it from my husband so I can read it first. He snagged the graphic novel from me last time while I was still in bed one morning. Not this time buster!!!! 
