Hollow Twilight

By Kieran Starovsky

It's all fun and games until somebody dies. Delve into the unsettling world of Hollow Twilight, a Ready Player One meets Stranger Things LitRPG where there's no XP to collect and no loot to scavenge, but one wrong move could be the difference between life and death.

Reid, a seemingly average high school senior, is bored of his meaningless life. That is, until he and his friends learn about a new mobile game, Hollow Twilight, and decide to give it a shot. But what starts as a strangely immersive dark fantasy RPG turns out to be far more as the teens realize they've literally crossed over into the game world and must now fight the shadowy monsters hunting them with no clear understanding of how to survive.

It's do or die for the group, which is par for the course in video games. But in Hollow Twilight, to die doesn't just mean an inconvenient respawn, and when one of their party members is killed by a vicious monster known as a Pariah, it results in their real-life death.

Addicted to mastering the dark power he's been assigned--while ignoring the voice in his head that comes with it--Reid is caught between his desire to keep playing and the very real possibility that he could die if he does. But can he find a way to protect his friends and defeat the Pariahs? The alternative is a return to the mundane life of a nobody, and that just might be more than he can bear.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1039014186
• ISBN13: 9781039014183
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Random House Canada
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Only light LitRPG

Now I am all for characters suddenly finding themselves in a new world/reality by opening a book or clicking on an app on their phone. That is why I jumped for the chance to read this book since it seemed to check every item on my list. However, the main character, Reid definitely reads like a middle schooler, or perhaps freshman instead of a senior in high school. I could live with that and once I decided he was younger, his choices and thought processes were more acceptable. Hollow Twilight, despite being the title, was not very well shown, at least in this first book and with that ending, there had better be another book! It had tantalizing glimpses in between Reid's agonizing over a new girl he met and whether he should go for it while still kind of pining for his friend Maple. It needed more time in the game and less crushes. So, it was kinda good and I probably look for the next book, especially if it will finally get into the bones of Hollow Twilight, how it came to be, who exactly are the Pariahs, and what the powers that the players get really mean for that world and how it might change them. I admit, I really like Reid's shadow and hope he gets a larger role.