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A small town in Upstate New York, nestled in the Hudson Basin. It’s a beautiful place, full of green fields and farm houses and suburban dreams. There’s the crazy lady with dark, cautionary tales that the youths just won’t listen to.
When the decision is made to build a new library, in honour of the old mayor, the town is excited. There’s to be a ‘ground breaking’ ceremony, and Cassandra is sent to report on it. It’s as dull as she expects, except when the spades hit the earth, a strange weather phenomenon takes place. It’s blink and you miss it, and at first, Cassandra isn’t entirely sure she imagined it. But, over the next few days, events in the town just get more and more bizarre. When it begins to appear as though the whole town is reliving events from 60 years before, Cassandra is determined to get to the bottom of it – no matter how chilling and frightening it may become.
Hallowed Ground is only a short story, easy to read in one sitting. Not least because of it’s short length – but because of how thoroughly compelling it is. It’s beautifully written, with an air of chilling, haunting vengeance throughout. You desperately want to find out what is causing the towns’ people to act so strangely and violently; why the young boy is suddenly so ominously wise.
This beautiful tale takes you through an important history and social lesson. Although we all think we know what people of colour were put through in the middle of the 20th Century, as white people, we really don’t understand the years of pain and torment that was suffered. Hallowed Ground opened my eyes in many ways, and made me reflect upon when I may have simply stood back instead of stepping forward. When I may have kept my mouth shut instead of opening it and offering my support to the marginalised and maligned.
Sometimes, secrets shouldn’t be kept long buried. They should be unearthed, reexamined in order to ensure that justice is brought towards all those nameless victims of hateful racism.
S. A.
This novella was originally reviewed as part of Reedsy Discovery’s ARC program. Read the original here.
You can buy Hallowed Ground by clicking on the name – and it is also available to read on Kindle Unlimited.