Miles Warren hails from a long line of psychics. Resigned to a life in the family business, Miles is perfectly happy, thank you very much. Apart from the fact he hasn’t told anyone he’s gay, and that he’s constantly exhausted from long nights spent wrangling angry ghosts in creepy cemeteries. Perfectly happy. 

But Miles’s comfortable routine is interrupted when he starts having visions of an unfamiliar boy. He soon learns the stranger is Gabriel Hawthorne, whose family have a mysterious, decades-long feud with Miles’s own—and that the visions are a premonition of his murder. Gabriel is everything Miles expects from a Hawthorne: rude, haughty, irritatingly good-looking. But that doesn’t mean Miles is just going to stand by and let someone kill him. 

The two form an uneasy alliance, trying to solve Gabriel’s murder before it happens. As they begin to unravel the web of secrets between their families, and with dark magic swirling around them, Miles is horrified to realize that he doesn’t hate Gabriel quite as much as he’s supposed to. He might even like him.

Too bad Gabriel is probably going to die.

In The Hollow and the Haunted, Camilla Raines has created a darkly atmospheric LGBTQ supernatural story full of mysteries and secrets along with a queer romance. From the first pages, the story delves into the paranormal world of Miles, where psychics and magic are real but telling your parents you’re gay is still difficult. 

I love the worldbuilding of this magical world of psychics and premonitions. The characters of Miles and Gabriel are complex and the dialogue between them rich and snappy. I love how the mystery of Mile’s premonition is developed, how the friendship and romance between the two grows but most of all how they fight and confront the spirits of Gabriel’s family. In particular, I love how Miles grows as a character throughout the story and eventually stands up for himself in crucial times. If I have one critique, it is that the story ends in a cliffhanger. While that is a terrific gothic element and this is meant to be a series, it is the one aspect that I as a reader dislike. 

However, if you like gothic stories and magical romances with a darkly atmospheric feeling and a lgbtq romance, this is a fantastic novel. I love everything else about the writing and that ending does mean that I’ll be coming back to read more, because I have to know what happens next. If you don’t mind waiting for a conclusion to the story, this novel is worth the read.

4.5 ghosts out of 5.