HOLLOW OUT THE DARK
by James Wade
Literary Fiction / Southern Gothic / Rural Fiction
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Pages: 328
Publication Date: August 20, 2024
SYNOPSIS
Award-winning author James Wade blends atmospheric prose with soul-stirring themes in Hollow Out the Dark, a gothic adventure set against a Depression-era landscape where a whiskey war threatens to decimate a small Texas town.
A veteran of the Great War, Jesse Cole is grateful for the quiet life he now leads. But when his closest friend runs afoul of local criminals Frog and Squirrel Fenley, Jesse is forced to spin his moral compass and enter a violent and volatile underworld. There he encounters corrupt lawmen, hired assassins, and a dark family secret that will upend all he once knew.
Complicating matters are Texas Ranger Amon Atkins—who arrives to investigate the Fenleys just as their empire is threatened by a deadly new competitor—and the green-eyed, raven-haired Adaline, a love Jesse thought he’d lost forever.
With resources scarce and winter falling hard on the town, a desperate Jesse must choose between the law and the lawless and find a way to survive while still protecting the people he loves.
A heart-pounding tale full of plot-twisting revelations, Hollow Out the Dark brings readers into a whiskey-fueled world where everyone has a secret, and love everlasting balances on the edge of a knife.
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BOOK TRAILER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Wade is the award-winning author of Beasts of the Earth, All Things Left Wild, and River, Sing Out. He is the youngest novelist to win two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, and the recipient of the MPIBA’s prestigious Reading the West Award. James’s work has appeared in Southern Literary Magazine, the Bitter Oleander, Writers’ Digest, and numerous additional publications. James lives and writes in the Texas Hill Country with his wife and children.
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“If darkness is all there is, then you carve out whatever little part of it belongs to you. Hollow out your own place and do anything you have to do to protect it, to protect yourself. Just survive.”
Hollow out the Dark by James Wade is an intriguing glance at the human condition during prohibition. The need to survive (physically, emotionally, and financially) during dark economic times will push people to their own personal precipices. When you are poor and/or marginalized to begin with, the times become even darker.
This literary showpiece is primarily about two men in a small east Texas town that is in throes of prohibition and the dark consequences of greed, hate, and corruption. In 1932, the bitter January cold is a major backdrop, with Wade’s lyrical prose breathing life into the bone-chilling weather that grips the entire novel. Amon Atkins is a Texas Ranger called to Enoch, Texas, to investigate a murder. Jesse Cole was a soldier during WWI and has since married his late brother’s wife as a means to protect and provide for her and his niece. While these men are on two different paths and barely interact with each other, they are both embroiled in the escalating nefarious events. One is on the outside as law enforcement, and one is reluctantly on the inside. Both are in the crosshairs of evil.
Hollow out the Dark captures the stark emotional reality of duty, fear, regret, immorality, and murder. Bootlegging was a lucrative business during prohibition, and evading the revenuers was a full-time job. With factories and other businesses closing their doors, the poorest of the poor must take what jobs they can get, even if those jobs cost them their integrity, family, and life. Squirrel and Frog Fenley may be the bootleggers in charge of the local operations, but they are not the only ones pulling the strings.
Evil lurks in the hollow, and both Amon and Jesse are on their own dangerous journeys to find the truth, protect their loved ones, confront their past, and stay alive. When this leg of their journey is complete, they both come face to face with their fate.
James Wade infuses Hollow out the Dark with memorable characters (all of them) and a melancholy plot that pulls no punches and sugarcoats nothing. As the bitter cold snaps branches and darkens the land and human hearts, the people left standing are faced with reality, revenge, promises, and hope.
Wade never disappoints and once again delivers a fantastic literary fiction that will keep you riveted all the way to the last page and then looking for more.
“There’s nothing worse than regretting what you’ve done, except the guilt of no doing anything at all.”
I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.
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