Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Hallelujah
AUTHOR: Kim Fielding & F.E. Feeley, Jr.
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
RELEASE DATE: March 31, 2020
BLURB:
Can you hear it?
Whispering in the dark.
Secrets only the dark knows.
Joseph Moore, choir director for the First Baptist Church of Lenora, Nebraska, has secrets of his own. Terrible, lonely secrets. One that involves natural human desire. One that calls forth powers he cannot begin to understand. Both with the potential to destroy him and those he loves.
Now the world is changing. The darkness, the shadows, the ghosts, are closing in—and Joseph and his lover, Kevin, are being stalked by a merciless demon, hell-bent on possession.
Can you hear it now?
There in the dark.
It’s whispering your name.
REVIEW:
I love both these authors, so when I heard they were doing a collaboration on this book, I instantly added it to my request sheet at Love Bytes. That was months ago, and I’ve since stopped reviewing at Love Bytes, but I’m back for this one.
Hallelujah is a book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. It is a tale of darkness, hidden lives, death, hauntings and demons. I liked the story and if it weren’t for a couple things that I personally really didn’t like, I would probably have given it a 5 star rating. Because of those couple things and because I strive to always give an honest review without blowing any smoke, I’m going to lower the rating to 4 stars. I’ll explain why below.
Let’s start with the things I did like. I liked the character of Joseph Moore, the lonely choir director of a fundamentalist Baptist church in the middle of Nebraska. Joseph knows his desires go against his church’s teachings, and when his family and the family of his friend Michelle want to push the two together, he can’t help but notice that he is more attracted to her brother Kevin. I loved Kevin’s rough tough redneck bad-boy character and Joseph and Kevin’s developing relationship.
The push towards Kevin’s sister, as well as Kevin and Joseph’s hidden relationship are only the start of Joseph’s problems. He also sees dead people, something that he has never shared. And now he can hear them. There is a darkness out there, a darkness that wants Joseph. Joseph is special. He brings Michelle and Kevin into his trust and details the ghost part of his life. Michelle also figures out along the way that she isn’t Joseph’s type, and seems to be okay with it. Joseph and Kevin’s relationship continues to grow, but soon a demon shows up and chaos reigns.
Along his journey Joseph will meet demons, psychics and regular people, not to mention a slew of ghosts, and maybe even a divine being or two. I really liked the ghost aspect with the ghost of the Native American man that Joseph has seen several times on his family’s property and ghost of the little boy that Joseph helped somewhere in the story. Overall, I would have liked more ghost interaction, but the demon was the central portion of the tale, so I understand why the ghost aspects weren’t as front and center.
Now for the parts that I didn’t like as much if I’m being honest. There might be a couple spoilers below, but I’ll try to keep them vague. I feel they’re necessary to explain my feelings.
I know the book was billed as a standalone, but there are a lot of characters that show up from the authors’ other books, especially Mr. Feeley’s Memoirs of the Human Wraiths books, which I’ve read and I’m guessing maybe from Ms. Fielding’s book Motel. Pool., that I haven’t had the pleasure of reading yet. That isn’t totally a bad thing, but there were a lot of characters coming and going, and even though I recently read the Human Wraiths books, I was kind of lost a few times as to who everyone was. People randomly popped up, and each time it threw me out of the story a bit in kind of a ‘Huh? Who?’ moment.
Then there is the death of a main character. I hated that part. I had to go to work directly after finishing that section and it haunted me all day. Because I love both of the authors, I went on to finish the book and enjoyed it, but the confusion and the death both tempered my enjoyment a little bit. I also thought a little bit less of Joseph because of his treatment of one of the ghosts that lasted for years and years.
My dislikes aside, I recommend the book. The book is definitely not a ‘feel good’ sort of story, but more reminiscent of the latter parts of Stephen King’s book The Stand, with good versus evil, and religious aspects. Maybe if you hadn’t read the previous books and didn’t have a vague idea of how they fit with the current story it might be a better read for you than it was for me with my trying to piece it all together in my head as I read? I’m not sure. So, I’m going to say this one was a firm 4 for me. If you enjoy ghostly tales with some other supernatural aspects thrown in, give it a try, I think you’ll enjoy it.
RATING: 
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