After 13 best-selling novels that have revitalized the landscape of genre fiction, Kim Harrison’s Hollows series—which features lovable witch and day-walking demon Rachel Morgan—is over.
For the last two decades, paranormal fantasy has enjoyed something of a Golden Age. Authors like Harrison, Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, and Jim Butcher have become household names, and more than a few literary characters have become one with the pop culture zeitgeist, including Sookie Stackhouse, Anita Blake, and Harry Dresden. Experiencing this evolution in genre fiction—the audacious blending of various genre elements (mystery, romance, horror, etc.) to create storylines with limitless possibilities—has been amazing. Authors like Stacia Kane, Marcus Pelegrimas, and Jaye Wells have proved without a doubt that the days of rigidly defined categories are long gone.
I was, admittedly, very sad while reading Harrson’s last Hollows novel, The Witch With No Name. I knew that this was it—I would never read about Rachel Morgan and her endearing group of friends again. My annual visits to the Hollows of Cincinnati were over. I found myself putting the book down again and again, as if a part of me didn’t want to read that final page.
I’m obviously not going to talk about what happened to Rachel on her journey of self-discovery, which was action-packed and more than a little surprising, but I would like to share three nuggets of wisdom I’ve learned from reading this series over the last decade.
1. Find your happiness
This has been Rachel’s credo from the very first book, though it may have taken her a little while to really figure it out. A line from The Witch With No Name is fitting here: “(D)o what you need to do to be happy and deal with the consequences.” That one line defines Rachel Morgan.
2. Enjoy the journey
As evidenced by the blockbuster plot twists in this novel, and in the series as a whole, everything changes. People change. Situations change. Enjoy each and every moment to the fullest because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
3. Laugh!
Even in the most hopeless of situations, Rachel always has her self-deprecating sense of humor. She could laugh at herself. The entire series has a humorous undertone—and really, how could it not, with ill-tempered pixie Jenks as a main character? I miss his one-liners already: “Sweet ever-loving pixy piss!”
Rachel may have had all kinds of trouble figuring out her place in the world, but for all her mistakes, her life philosophy was as solid as it was simple: love, live, and laugh.
So as Rachel Morgan and her friends walk off into the Cincinnati sunset, I want to take a moment to thank Kim Harrison not only for writing one of today’s most influential paranormal fantasy sagas, but, more importantly, for writing a series of novels that deeply resonated with so many millions of readers.
Goodbye Rachel Mariana Morgan—you and your crazy red hair and penchant for leather will be sorely missed.
Have you read Kim Harrison’s Hollows series?
