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.
Next up in our run through the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) Finalists is The Hallows by H. L. Tinsley, and it’s taken the top spot in our standings so far. The Hallows is The Fantasy Hive‘s pick for this year’s finalist. You can read their review here. And you can see the finalist spreadsheet here.
It follows Camellia, an Assessor with Providence Company, a church-sanctioned policing unit whose members take Hallow, a controlled serum that sharpens their Auld Blood talents until it starts to break their bodies. When a string of deaths hits a city already on edge, with an Auld Blood candidate about to take a seat in government, Cam and his flower-named crew race to stop the next murder before the whole place goes up. It’s gaslamp noir full of grime, jazz, and fighting nuns who occasionally float, and it carries real weight about bigotry, faith, and addiction while still finding room for humour. Here’s what we thought.
Julia
The Hallows is urban fantasy set in the 1920s, and that alone made it a lovely change of pace. It isn’t as dark as Tinsley’s previous series, but it’s every bit as unique and wonderfully strange. Floating nuns who also happen to be fighters? I was sold before I’d turned the first page.
What makes it so much fun is the characters. Their camaraderie and banter are a counterweight to a world that can get pretty bleak, and there’s real humour tucked in between the grit. It worked very well for me.
These are teams used to gore and hard fights, and they’re grouped by theme. Our main crew is named after flowers, so alongside our lead Camellia you get the likes of Forget Me Not. On paper that should feel odd. Here it just fits, and I can’t quite tell you why.
I also loved that Tinsley doesn’t spend much time telling us what people look like. The focus is on how a scene feels instead. As someone with aphantasia, I find purely visual description stays on the surface for me. I want a book to go deeper than that, and this one does. I sank right in.
The worldbuilding trickles in slowly but runs deep by the end. Corporate greed, religion, and questions of social responsibility are woven through the story, so the setting feels real instead of neatly split into good and bad. Some characters try to bring regular humans and Auld Bloods together, while others work to divide them and spread hate. That friction feels as relevant to our own society as it ever has.
But this isn’t just a book that makes you think. The action is fast and addictive, and it had me glued to the pages. Monsters, those floating nuns again, or simply a race against the clock, I was hooked every time.
Real depth in the issues it tackles, balanced with a good dose of humour, and a generous pinch of weirdness, all stirred together with great action. What’s not to love?
Adawia
Wow! Fan-freakin-tastic! An excellent book with one of the best, most vivid, battle scenes I’ve ever read.
Dark and atmospheric, this story keeps people at its heart. The choices we make within (and occasionally, without) the confines of the choices we have are exaggerated in this tightly controlled world in which bigots and opportunists abound.
Religion is a major part of this story (of this world) but there’s no righteous moralising—at least, not by the author. Good and evil exists, but sometimes it’s difficult to determine which is which, and both can be misappropriated.
I recall an interview Adrian Gibson (FanFi Addict) did with Anna Smith Spark where Anna talks about her love of battle scenes, how they’re her favourite thing to read (and possibly write) when done right. Well, H. L. Tinsley does them right! There’s an absolutely magnificent battle scene in this book—it’s vivid, chaotic, visceral, and just plain mad. The imagery is superb (and I say that as someone who struggles with imagery). If for no other reason, this scene, along with the string of jaw-dropping reveals toward the end of the book, make The Hallows totally worth the read.
Yaniv
Sometimes it helps when you read the right book at the right time. This was one of those times.
The Hallows is quite a complex and multi-layered read for its relatively short page count. At its heart, this story is a heady concoction of faith, politics, religion, magic, and evolution. It’s about one Assessor’s effort to retain balance in a world careening out of control with little to no belief. It’s also about the regrets of the past and the will to fight for a bittersweet tomorrow. While I do recognize some hiccups here like the uneven pacing, dense plot, and possibly too large cast of characters, the book’s strengths overcame them in spades.
The two elements I enjoyed the most were the characters and worldbuilding. Cam who starts out by having to outrace dogs, has to outrun many more secrets, grief, and making mistakes by the end. Forget-me-not who’s an entitled sod until he isn’t. Lavender who seemed so bland but went to unspeakable lengths to protect others, and the other cast members and nuns who were sewn in as well.
The noir gaslamp atmosphere was very well written with dark streets, loud jazz music, plenty of magical beings, murders, secrets and factories. The end hit me hard, and I truly believe the author accomplished a remarkable feat in penning a standalone fantasy book that could easily beat many other longer stories in the genre. For all of those who enjoy darker, grittier, more secretive stories like I do, this one is highly recommended!
Maureen
The writing at the outset reminds me of Joe Miller, the detective in the first season of The Expanse, stumbling over gruesome sights and trying to make sense of something he’s never seen before. In this story, our guy, Camellia, thinks there’s a connection between some deaths and knows he’s likely the only one who can figure it out before the city implodes from racial tensions. Trouble is brewing; an ‘Auld Blood’ has been elected to the city government and there are people who will stop at nothing to make sure he’s never sworn in.
This is a pretty straightforward detective story, but Camellia is an Auld Blood and his specialty, when taking the controlled drug that heightens his talents, is sensing. All his faculties are incredibly enhanced; it helps his company solve crimes in their districts. Providence Company is a sanctioned, policing part of the church, answerable to Sister Aysha.
The quality of writing throughout was topnotch; descriptive and often gritty.
Lavender was the boss. A dewlapped bulldog of a man, five foot six on stacked shoes. The sort of man that could piss vinegar without wincing; nobody dared look at him sideways.
I made the comment that it felt like a Mark Lawrence book at one point, with this quote:
You never knew the power of faith until you’d seen an armed nun robed in white serge descend from a thirty-foot platform to immobilise an unsanctioned visitor.
Not a bad comparison.
The pacing kept this book moving along just one step shy of breakneck, with enough space to ramp up to the end, at the same time as giving the reader (and characters) enough time to breathe.
Politics is just one facet of this terrific study of people, augmenting drugs, power, guilt, attraction, loss, policing, and hard detective work. With so many factions to juggle, it would be easy to miss something, but everything was kept straight— no dropped threads or mix-ups.
The characters went deep and I experienced a wave of sadness at the end. However, I love endings where you know stuff is going to go sideways; both you and the MC are fighting to see it doesn’t happen, and you’re hoping beyond hope, but the author has a twist for you.
Stacey
I absolutely devoured this story. All of my favourite elements were here, gaslamp, noir, grimdark, weird characters, weirder “magic” and best of all: fighting killer nuns that occasionally float. Sister Ramona is my spirit animal! I might not be happy being in the passenger seat with her driving but I’m damn sure she’ll get us to where we’re going.
The Providence Company is kinda bad news. The Auld Bloods pretty much rule everything using the Hallow, a serum that enhances skills and abilities, at least until it makes the body go haywire and sprout extra appendages or outright kills people. Humans pretty much always die so it’s a no go for them. It’s addictive and we all know what happens when you have a substance that is addictive yet controlled by one source, things go underground and get dangerous.
When the political landscape starts to change, with Calvin Jasper, an Auld Blood close to winning a seat for the first time, there are factions who don’t want that to happen. But the position will help the Aulds with power, money, and the ability to effect change. On the brink of collapse, the Church needs this win and will do just about anything to get him there.
Of course, this is a murder mystery too, with investigation by my fav character Camellia. His POV takes us on his journey down a rabbit hole of corruption and danger. His group of fellow flower named Assessors who work for the Church, all have unique powers when they are on Hallow. They are a close knit group, led by Lavender, but all have darkness to them that is fantastic to read about. Together they attempt to thwart further murders and an assassination attempt. Things get pretty hairy!
There is so much going on yet the author doesn’t scrimp one word nor does she miss an opportunity to build characters to love, and love to hate. You won’t be able to stop turning pages of this book.
There is no real “good guy” so don’t expect that, but you will get a story that gives you introspection and flashes of hope, all tied up with a wild ride for a bow. This story has not been told anywhere else, and that’s my favourite part of it all. Read it!
E.G.
I walked into this book totally blind (as I do) and was thrown into a mix of noir detective fiction, paranormal shenanigans, and some sort of paladin awakening. I generally like all those stories and the mix proved to be very interesting. The story absolutely leans into the noir side of things; the characters are all morally grey at the very least, with tragic backgrounds (or tragic presents), and while Camellia is probably a good guy, he’s no saint. The story itself was entertaining enough, with magic and consequences and a mystery. But that was where I think the story fell short. It was trying to be a mystery, a noir detective fic, but to do that, one has to give the reader clues as to who the culprit might be. In this instance, I don’t think there were enough clues (excepting for the ‘twist’ of why it was happening now) to identify the villains of the story, which made it less a mystery and more a plain adventure. Fine, on its own, but not when I was expecting a proper mystery. Still, the story was inventive and the characters interesting. Worth a read.
Kerry
Hallows is a book whose worldbuilding encapsulates so many of my favourite subjects in fantasy; noir detectives, politics, the fight against bigotry and “othering”, and the use of drugs as a magic system. As an ex drug user, abuser and addict, I commend Tinsley for accurately describing the use of the drug Hallows—the highs, lows, the loss of bodily functions, the feeling of untouchability, and the inevitable descent into loss of control as well as the knowledge that one day death can come at any moment.
As someone on the aphantasia spectrum it is rare I see people and actions clearly but Tinsley’s prose managed to affix characters etc. extremely well in my head. As I read, I actually saw this play out like a TV show or movie in my head. Whilst Hallows is mostly centred around the character Camellia, all the other characters were fully fleshed out, we get to learn much of their back stories too through well written, tight prose and exposition. Amazing stuff for a book that isn’t a massive tome. I have to say my favourite character was Sister Ramona—totally related to her (in a non spiritual way), especially her driving technique. Rare to find a character whose driving skills are totally reflective of my own.
Eva
Atypical to my usual deep dive of a blurb and perusal of reviews before starting a book, I went into The Hallows completely blind of its plot, and boy am I glad I did. This one was such a nice surprise. I particularly enjoyed Tinsley’s ability to drop you right into a story and felt excited by the learn-as-you-go structure. It’s skillful to balance that without making a reader feel lost.
Our main character, Camellia, is a complex character. His persistent need to solve the series of crimes he’s presented with teeters on the edge of pathological altruism, but it really works in this case. Despite this, he’s likeable. Cam’s sense-enhancing powers while under the influence of Hallow is powerful, but not so insane that he feels like an obvious hero. His past demons regularly come out and affect his actions, but I appreciate his self-awareness in at least knowing where he needs personal growth.
Cam and his cohort of friends remind me of Guardians of the Galaxy (with Daff being Groot of course). Overall, I felt invested in the plethora of side character’s fates and found them really complementary to Cam and the story.
The Hallows intertwines themes of religious fervor, political machinations, and regular ol’ good vs. evil. The delightful inclusion of gun-toting nuns was reminiscent of The Boondock Saints (one of my favorite movies) and added a pop of comic relief at opportune moments.
I really connected with Tinsley’s writing style, a solid blend of evocative and matter-of-fact prose. This book is for those looking for a mildly suspenseful mystery, loveable characters, and a unique approach on what a happily ever after is supposed to look like.
That’s our take on The Hallows! This is our highest-scoring book in the Finals so far, with near-unanimous love for Camellia and his crew, the noir atmosphere, the action, and the way it tackles bigotry, faith, and addiction without preaching. No DNFs, and the gripes were few: some uneven pacing and a crowded cast for the page count, plus a mystery that didn’t quite give readers enough clues to solve it themselves.
Our Score: 8.86/10
Our Official SPFBO Score: 9/10
The Hallows is one of the ten finalists in this year’s SPFBO. Here’s how our current standings look:
A Light from the Nether by Molly Dowd Sullivan
Carrion Saints by Hiyodori: 7.25
Dogged by Michael R. Fletcher
The Hallows by H. L. Tinsley: 8.91
The Honorable Con by Michele C. Shaw
Jester by Tim Carter: 8.44
No More Levels by Benjamin Barreth: 7
Of Mages and Makers by Rel Carroll: 7.9
To Touch a Silent Fury by R. A. Sandpiper
Violence & Vigilance by David T. List
A huge thank you to H. L. Tinsley for putting this book forward, and to all the other teams working through the Finals alongside us. Stay tuned as the scores come in for the rest. You can see the list of all the finalists and their scores here.
Our judges for Round Two are Adawia, EG, EVA, Kerry, Maureen, Max, Sara, Sherry, Stacey, Tianna, Yaniv, and Julia (me). If you’d like to learn more about us, including our likes and dislikes, you can read about them here.
Any queries should be directed at our editor, Jennie Ivins, via Bluesky, Instagram, or Threads.
