Title: Hail Holy Queens
Author: Chris McGinley
Rating: 3.5/5
Info: 228 pages, first published by Fringe Press 07/28/2026
Genre: Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery
A big thank you to NetGalley and Fringe Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Hail Holy Queens is a journal-style story written by Henrietta, who addresses the reader throughout her tale. Henrietta finds herself at a convent as part of her doctor and husband’s treatment plan for her behavioral problems, with her writing dark tales as the biggest problem. At the beginning of her stay, she keeps to herself, writing away in her cell and participating in convent life as little as possible. On the eve of her release, a snowstorm hits, and with it comes evil creatures and the Long Nun to guide the convent in a holy war.
What follows is a wild tale of battle nuns, wolf monsters, sisterly bonding, and a lot of blood and violence. Did I mention the blood? It's a crazy fun ride with some minor issues.
This first issue is definitely a me thing. This is a Catholic convent filled with nuns, so there are a lot of references to rituals, rites, and articles of clothing I had to look up just to understand the story. As a newcomer telling her story to readers who may or may not know what these things are, I think Henrietta should have explained these better.
Henrietta sounded a bit too modern at times when talking to the reader. The Long Nun did as well, but it felt different when she did. I got the feeling that she might have been an angel in disguise or something along those lines, so her speech didn’t bother me. Henrietta, on the other hand, was supposed to be a society woman, and her wording sometimes felt more modern than the late 1800s.
Lastly, when the nuns went on the hunt for the devil/demon (?) monsters, the story became a bit repetitive. This isn’t a long book so I feel like it shouldn’t have felt like it was dragging. But it did. Maybe the repetition was intentional, mimicking the nuns’ daily rituals? If so, I missed that.
Still, it was an interesting tale that danced the line of classic pulp horror and modern-day horror.
I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a short, Catholic-themed pulp horror story.