London, December 1849
Irene Shallcross Haley has dedicated her life to necromancy, a forbidden, reviled art that is passed along through sentient grimoires bound in human skin. With her undead husband St. John—a marriage of kindred spirits and platonic convenience—she has been protecting the knowledge of generations of witches that came before her. Like any magic, it has come at a cost: her reputation, her relationship with her sister, and her soul. But when Irene’s love, Agnes, is hanged for witchcraft, Irene refuses to let Agnes be one more thing that is taken from her.
A true resurrection has not been achieved in two thousand years, but Irene is determined. With the help of St. John, Irene bangs on the doors of the Halls of the Dead, demanding the third part of their triumverate back…or did she? Because the Agnes that awakens comes with both a hunger for raw flesh and a malignant ghost tied to her soul.
Necromancy is the art of saying no—no, I won’t let you go; no, I won’t let you be destroyed—and Irene’s work is not yet done. She must find a way to bring Agnes back to her true self, she must navigate her feelings for her resurrected lover as well as St. John, and she must do all of this without catching the attention of Sir Silas Underhill, the man who sentenced Agnes to death.
Death is not the end of love. But Irene may realize it can actually be the beginning.
In The Halls of the Dead by S. M. Hallow, the author has created a crushing, emotional queer gothic that tackles witchcraft, necromancy and romance. I love the themes of loving beyond the grave and learning to change. There is beautiful descriptive language and I love the bisexual longing among all three of the characters. The story is compelling, especially the flawed resurrection of Agnes and the magic is intriguing.
What I love the most is the romance between the three and the interactions with the world of the dead, how both Irene and Agnes have different experiences. The Halls of the Dead are incredibly well thought out and I love the changes that all three characters go through by the end of the novel.
If you like queer gothic romance mixed with necromancy, this is the book for you. With a three way romantic love story, the novel is compelling and engrossing. The element of magic is well explored and built but most of all, I love how we get the reactions and emotions of all three main characters as they explore the love between the three of them.
Rating: 5 out of 5 souls
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