[Emily’s Review]: Hollow House by Amanda Meuwissen (Tea Roses and Tentacles book 2)

Logan is more content and complete than ever with his lover, Jaime, as companion to help run the Tea House, their quaint bed and breakfast with its extensive garden of tea roses. Each day, Logan chooses a new daily rose to be on display for their patrons, and each day, his hunger grows. He always eventually needs to feed again, but he promised Jaime to only devour those who deserve it. Despite it being the busy season, the current guests taking advantage of their ‘pay what you can’ policy offer few options.

Little does Logan know his resolve to keep his promise to Jaime will soon be tested as old patrons he met decades previously are coming for a visit and don’t expect to find the same concierge as when they were teenagers. He might once again be forced to eliminate all witnesses to the dark truth of…

Hollow House.

I received this book for free from Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

If I were to review Hollow House ALONE, by itself, with zero context… Not only would it make absolutely ZERO sense, it would also spoil like….. the entire duet for you.
SOOOOOOO
Today is your lucky day. You get two reviews in one post. Hurrah!

We will start with The Tea House then shall we?
I will try to review this one as succinctly as possible and with as few spoilers as possible. See Below:

Tea House is a novella that takes place at a very quaint little bed and breakfast. We meet Logan, the jack of all trades around the inn. If you need something, then Logan is the man to see.
Jamie is a down on his luck twenty something year old who was kicked out of his home for being queer and basically everything in his life is complete shit all the time and then he went away for a weekend at The Tea House and feels more at home and relaxed than ever and gets all the R&R he needs.
Fast forward! BAM! Some pretty suspicious things are happening around the Inn…. patrons disappearing, Logan is *~everywhere~* but also ~*nowhere*~ all the time. The Tea House is too perfect to be true and Jamie is feeling weird about it.
(Keep in mind…. this is a duet called “Tea Room and Tentacles)
BING BANG BOOM!
Screams! Horror! SPOOKY STUFF!
lalala
Jamie and Logan fall in love and have some sex.
It’s graphic in detail but I don’t want to ruin all the fun.
Anyhow… secrets about the inn are uncovered, Logan spills the beans, Jamie ends up staying and POOF, you need book two in order to get the happy ending!
So needless to say, in order to appreciate Hollow House, you definitely need to read The Tea House First.

Here is the link- it’s on KU, go download it: https://a.co/d/gtDGtgc

IF you have read Tea House and enjoyed that then feel free to continue with this review. If you haven’t read The Tea House then get your butt to Amazon and download it.

SPOILERS POSSIBLE BELOW

So Hollow House is a continuation of The Tea House. Truly, Hollow House’s only job it to wrap this duet up in a tight little bow. Now. It is my opinion that this “duet” was not needed. DEF could have been a single book.
Alas, my opinion on the matter does not matter.

This duet is considered Eldrich Horror, which i’m not entirely familiar with. This was my first foray into that genre.
This is the definiteion if you too are new to the genre:  Also referred to as Lovecraftian Horror, Eldrich Horror is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock.
So there you have it. Definitely tracks, the horror aspect has to do with the dark spaces between the different multiverses and existing in a different plane. I sort of alikened it to the space between multi-verses in the Avengers. I could be wrong, but reading is subjective!(?)

Basically Hollow House follows Logan and Jamie who are both in on all the secrets and spookies of the BNB that Logan runs. They have fallen in love, it’s a year later, they are happy happy sweet little babies.

SPOILER
Logan is immortal. So he doesn’t age, he doesn’t change. When some old patrons come back to celebrate their anniversary at the inn (where they fell in love) they recognize him! Eegads. It’s not a good situation. Logan might have to eat them. Would be a huge bummer all around.

Jamie being so sweet is like, “yes hunny. I know you might have to eat them. I support you” and that’s that!

EXCEPT ITS NOT

SPOILER
Logan instead offers a bit of his immortality to the two gentlemen from long ago- who inspired him to pursue falling in love. Both the old men offer to keep Logan’s big secret and they ride off into the sunset.

Jamie and Logan have some sex in the rose bushes to celebrate, Jamie says he wants to live as long as Logan does.

Love wins, everyone is happy, its a nice neat little bow and it was fucking adorable.

I loved it.

I loved these novellas, from beginning to end.

Emily

Emily is a coffee loving, cat snuggling, hairstylist and book-a-holic.
Having always been a voracious reader and devouring books at a breakneck speed, joining the bookish and blogging community seemed like a natural next step. She loves giving recommendations to friends and family and then very gently (and not forcefully at all) asking for their opinions after they complete each chapter.
Her reviews tend to be goofy, a little sweary, on the more impassioned side and maybe sometimes a little self deprecating.
Emily typically enjoys reading almost every genre, including (but not limited to) monster romance, literary fiction, rom-com, contemporary, LGBTQ+, low/urban fantasy, paranormal, dystopian, sci-fi, gothic romance or basically any book that will make her cry.