Review: Hollow Pike by James Dawson

Hollow Pike by James Dawson
Published: February 2nd, 2012 (Orion)
Pages: 416
Source: for review
Challenge: Debut Author Challenge 2012
Series: none
Buy the book: Bookdepository
Rating: ★★☆☆☆


Something wicked this way comes... She thought she'd be safe in the country, but you can't escape your own nightmares, and Lis London dreams repeatedly that someone is trying to kill her. Lis thinks she's being paranoid - after all who would want to murder her? She doesn't believe in the local legends of witchcraft. She doesn't believe that anything bad will really happen to her. You never do, do you? Not until you're alone in the woods, after dark - and a twig snaps... Hollow Pike - where witchcraft never sleeps.

Before I start off by offering my thoughts on this book, I have to say that I'm having a really hard time writing this review. This book held so much promise, with an intriguing synopsis and it being a debut for 2012, but for me it didn't work at all.

I've been trying to read some more books about witches for a while now, so I was really excited when I got this one in for review. The synopsis tells me that Hollow Pike is a small little town were witchcraft never sleeps. However, while I was reading it, I felt like all the witchcraft was in some sort of coma and didn't come out of it until I was getting towards the end of the book.

This may sound a bit harsh, but for a book about witchcraft, there was a remarkably low amount of this book dedicated to that subject. Sure, there was talk about how Hollow Pike was a place full of witches centuries ago, and how the copse was supposedly haunted, but other than that, there wasn't much. Instead, a lot of pages were spent talking about Lis' nightmares and how the birds seem to be watching her. It was mentioned so often that I got annoyed before I reached the 30 page mark: after mentioning it twice, I know it's somehow important for the plot. I get it. There's no need to mention it a dozen times. So I would have liked for the story to pick up, but it didn't. The story was slow and dragged on without anything happening.

The characters fell flat and were stereotypical in a way I hadn't experienced before. There was a snobby girl who thought she was queen of the school, two lesbian girls who were bullied and called witches, their sidekick was a boy who was a geeky guy who liked comics and the main character was constantly giving me the impression how she was not pretty, special, or whatever. The love interest was the most popular guy in school. They didn't have any depth and the characters who were important for the plot were completely invisible until the plot started to unravel near the end.

Honestly, there wasn't much I liked about the book. I liked the theme, and I liked the setting, but that was about it for me. Because of the reasons I gave before, it just didn't work for me. I was frustrated and annoyed and I just didn't enjoy reading this book. I wouldn't recommend picking it up.