Into the Hollow

Karina Halle

Series: Experiment in Terror #6
Publisher: Metal Blonde Books
Publication Date: Nov 15, 2012
Genre: Horror/Paranormal Romance
Source: Purchased

Perry Palomino has fought her demons – and won – but the battle is far from over. She’s now left broken and on her own, leaving behind her life and family in Portland to focus on giving Dex Foray – and the Experiment in Terror show – a second chance. But their past mistakes continue to tease and test their relationship, as does the wild and desolate terrain of the Canadian Rockies. The snow-covered peaks and ravenous forests hide an urban legend too unbelievably frightening to be true and the only way the duo has a chance of surviving is if Perry can let in the very man who sent her to hell and back.

Good morning y’all! We’re back from our week off, and we feel rejuvenated. Although, my Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful, seeing as how everyone was sick. Except me. So my MIL and I spent all of Wed night, and all day Thurs in the kitchen preparing a wonderful meal that no one could eat. Isn’t that always the way it goes?

I decided to start the week off with the latest release in the Experiment in Terror series. Into the Hollow is the sixth book,  and after On Demon Wings, I was hoping for some resolution in Dex and Perry’s relationship. The ending of the fourth book destroyed even the friendship the two had built up, and Dex was barely around in On Demon Wings. Well, until the very end when he swooped in and saved the day. Now he’s back, and Dex is determined to fix what went wrong between him and Perry.

After Perry’s family basically betrayed her in the last book, she knows she has to move out of the house or risk having the same fate as her grandmother. She has no job, no savings and nowhere to go, so moving out might be a little difficult. Dex swoops in again, offering her a place to stay with him in Seattle until she finds a job and gets back on her feet. Despite the anger and resentment she still feels toward him (even with him saving her life in the last book, almost losing his in the process), Perry agrees. They pack up her room and Perry finally, finally moves out of her parent’s house. Thank heavens. If she’d spent one more book still living there, I think I might have started an online protest. Picket lines, obnoxious signs and all. But now she’s moved out, and she’s in the very best place she possibly could be. Even if Perry doesn’t agree. At first.

After a few days of getting used to her new digs, Dex and Perry get a call from the owner of their show, wanting them to come back. They both agree, and are soon off on their first assignment to the cold and desolate Canadian Rockies. The horror part of the book wasn’t nearly as horrorish as the previous books in the series. I am excited that the couple have returned to the show and are filming again, since the ghost hunts were my favorite part of the series. Halle has the wonderful talent of making everything extra creepy. In this book, they’re trying to demystify a beast that is haunting a local hunting lodge. Admittedly, Halle’s version of the snow beast is not the fluffy version in Harry and the Hendersons. When Dex and Perry finally got a good look at him, I was glad I was reading from the safety of my couch. Yikes. But overall, the creep factor was a lot lower in this book than books of old. But don’t take this as a complaint, because Dex and Perry needed more page time than usual to fix their issues. And boy, did they have issues.

I’ve always been more of a Dex fan than a Perry fan. Dex made mistakes, but I admired his ability to admit them and grow from the experience. Like a semi normal grown up should do. Perry, on the other hand, does not. I’ve struggled with Perry’s immaturity. She was 23, acting like she was 17, and still living at home with no real life plan. And everything that happened to her was always someone else’s fault. She really makes it hard for Dex in this book to fight for forgiveness. She is so afraid of letting him get close again, of going into that dark hole that opened her up for the demon invasion, that she was completely incapable of seeing that she was equally at fault for their fallout. It wasn’t until about 75-80% in the book that she finally pulled her head out of her ass and realized that maybe she made mistakes too. That maybe she needed Dex’s forgiveness just as much as he needed hers. BREAK THROUGH, y’all. Holy cow, a major break through. For the first time I felt like Perry was a heroine that I could get behind. I just hope that she keeps growing and developing into a woman that I can respect, instead of this immature teenager I felt like she’s been up until now.

Now that the couple’s relationship is back on track (mostly), hopefully we can return to the show and the wicked awesome ghost hunts that Dex and Perry lead us on. And I’m also looking forward to figuring out why Dex and Perry are so different, and about their new magical powers. Into the Hollow was a wonderful character driven addition to the series, and I can’t wait to see where Halle takes me next!

My Rating: A