House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland - A Review
- madgirlthoughts
- Dec 24, 2025
- 3 min read
“Some doors should never be opened twice.”
What could be more Christmassy than another dive into the unnerving worlds of feminine horror showcased in Krystal Sutherland’s debut novel?
Actually, given that telling ghost stories was a huge part of a traditional Christmas and can be traced back to Pagan rituals before the religions most of us know now existed…
Yeah. This might be the most festive thing I could’ve chosen.
Welcome to the House of Hollow.
There is something wrong with the Hollow sisters.
But then why does everyone love them so?
Love them enough to make them stars. Enough to fall at their feet at school, at work, in the middle of the street. Enough to break into their family home.
I guess that’s what happens when you’re branded the ‘Miracle Sisters.’
Ten years ago, Iris, Vivi, and Grey Hollow disappeared on New Year's Day.
On a family trip to Edinburgh, one moment, the girls are playing on a quiet suburban street, the next, they’re the most famous missing faces in the country.
The only time they get more attention? Exactly one month later, the three girls reappeared in the very same spot where they disappeared.
And they came back… different.
Iris was the youngest when she and her sisters vanished. Now seventeen, she’s never been as comfortable being one of the infamous ‘Hollow Sisters’ as Vivi and Grey.
Especially Grey.
But now, Grey is missing. The eldest Hollow sister has vanished once again. Only this time, the only ones who seem to be looking, or even care, are Iris and Vivi.
Even their mother seems reluctant to search for her firstborn.
As Iris and Vivi try to find their sister, details begin to emerge about their original disappearance all those years ago.
Details that everyone, especially the girls themselves, will wish had remained buried.
After all, there has been something wrong with the Hollow Sisters for quite some time…
It’s creepy, it’s kooky, it doth soothe my feral, cretinous little heart.
No, for real, I LOVE stories like this—that kind of Alice-in-Wonderland-Gone-Wrong and/or Neverland-Not-Being-as-it-Seems tale.
I eat that shit up pretty much every time - and I go for hypothetical seconds when it’s written as well as House of Hollow.
It’s a fairy tale born out of the darkest parts of femininity.
After they returned from their vanishing, Grey, out of all of them, seemed to embrace both their infamy and the ethereal beauty they’d come back with more than either of her little sisters. Embraced it enough to launch herself into almost-supermodel status, and walk that line between being exploited and doing the exploiting, complicating her status as ‘victim’ both in the eyes of the public and Iris.
As Iris and Vivi search for Grey, their journey leads them to places and people where the pursuit of beauty has become insular and twisted.
Much like the sisters themselves and the emotionally co-dependent relationship they’ve had since their disappearance.
Insular, twisted, and grotesquely beautiful.
I enjoy many a thing about Krystal Sutherland’s writing. Still, one of the extra things I love about House of Hollow in particular is the uniqueness of the horror elements.
House of Hollow doesn’t just rely on blood and guts and gore to make readers shiver.
It’s more subtle than that and may be hard to explain, but I’m gonna give it a go anyway.
We don’t have to see a thing die to feel horrified by its death.
Sometimes, it’s the sickly sweet, cloying remnants of decay that will make a person's hair stand on end and their stomach twist.
That’s House of Hollow.
It’s not the monster with claws that you watch rip someone apart.
It’s not the death itself that comes for you.
It’s something that died in the walls a long time ago and the rot that has spread from it since.
And it’s wonderfully awful.
Well, there we are then.
The ‘spirits’ of the season are alive (or dead) and well. Hug a friend, light the fire, and tell a ghost story or two before the man in red comes to town.
It might just make the light feel that little bit warmer when the sun comes up again.
Merry Christmas, Blessed Be, and Happy Holidays to all.
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BOO!
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