Bram Stoker Award-winner Christopher Golden (Dead Ringers; Road of Bones) blends 1980s nostalgia with eldritch horrors in Halloween terror-fest All Hallows. This ensemble cast horror story is a bloody race against the clock to survive the night set against a backdrop of family and neighborhood drama.
It's Halloween night in 1984 Massachusetts, and Tony Barbosa and his teen daughter Chloe have put extra effort into their annual homegrown Haunted Woods attraction. Financial troubles and an impending move are sounding a death knell for the tradition. Their neighbors on Parmenter Road face their own struggles. Barb Sweeney fights to stay strong for her kids in the face of her husband's constant infidelity. There are whispered rumors that the Burgess couple ran a brothel in their last town and abducted children. While conflict distracts the adults, the kids on Parmenter Road notice something odd while trick-or-treating: unknown, unkempt children in costumes that look like they came from bygone decades are appearing around the neighborhood. Tween Rick Barbosa and his best friend Billie are trailed by a little boy in a scarecrow costume whom they later must rescue, but Rick is sure something about the child is off. Other creepy children beg kids in the neighborhood for help hiding from "the Cunning Man," the monstrous being hunting them. His coming spells gruesome disaster as well as some surprising twists.
Golden captures the flavor of the 1980s suburb through accurate social dynamics and pop-culture references. Readers looking for supernatural scares dressed up in vintage garb will find both tricks and treats here. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads