Author: Laura Bickle
Release Date: September 25, 2012
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547859260
ISBN13: 9780547859262
Genre: Young Adult/ Dystopian
Review Copy Source: Netgalley
If your home was the last safe place on earth, would you let a stranger in?
In this captivating thriller, an Amish settlement is the last safe haven in a world plagued by an unspeakable horror…
Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers are free to experience non-Amish culture before officially joining the church. But before Rumspringa arrives, Katie’s safe world starts to crumble. It begins with a fiery helicopter crash in the cornfields, followed by rumors of massive unrest and the disappearance of huge numbers of people all over the world. Something is out there...and it is making a killing.
Unsure why they haven’t yet been attacked, the Amish Elders make a decree: No one goes outside their community, and no one is allowed in. But when Katie finds a gravely injured young man lying just outside the boundary of their land, she can’t leave him to die. She refuses to submit to the Elder’s rule and secretly brings the stranger into her community—but what else is she bringing in with him?
Who would have thought an Amish story that involves vampires would be so fun to read. Katie and her very best friend Elijah (who she expects to marry one day) are on the verge of experiencing Rumspringa. She has been saving her money and listing all the things she has wanted to do for as long as she can remember. Unfortunately that all gets put on hold when a helicopter crashes in her cornfield and people start disappearing and people she knows start getting murdered.
I found Katie's character to be extremely well developed. She is naive to the outside world yet very old for her age. She has respect for her elders but doesn't blindly follow with things she does not believe in. She willingly put herself in danger to save others. She was very easy to like and enjoy. I liked her best friend Elijah in the beginning but that quickly started to fade. There is a bit of romance in THE HALLOWED ONE, Alex the love interest plays a big part in showing Katie that she can have what she wants out of life. The world that THE HALLOWED ONES is set in is amazingly detailed. Are we sure Laura Bickle isn't Amish herself? I never would have imagined some of the the things I learned about the Amish in THE HALLOWED ONES, Laura had to have done an amazing amount of research to be able to write such a believing book set in an Amish world.
THE HALLOWED ONES really had everything I look for in a book, Amazing characters, easy to fall into world, quick pace with a nice flow and a super plot filled with action, suspense and mystery. I have not seen anything that suggests their will be another book to follow but I really hope there is another book in the mix because I am dying to know what happens after the ending.
I gave it 4/5 stars
