Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates: My Book Review

I love a good creepy book. And when I say creepy, I mean the kind that makes you nervous about what might be waiting around the next corner. The kind where you can practically see everything happening in your head as you read.

Well, Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates absolutely delivered!

I’ve read Darcy Coates before, and she really knows how to write a terrifying story. But this one? Oh, my goodness. It was amazingly creepy!

An isolated winery, a family with a horrifying history, and things that come out at night that absolutely should not be moving. What’s not to love?

But what I enjoyed most was that this wasn’t just a story about surviving something terrifying. It was also about uncovering the truth, confronting a family’s terrible past, and doing what’s right, even when doing so could cost everything.

And I loved every bit of it.

My Thoughts on Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates

I Felt So Sorry for Margot

Right from the beginning, I felt terrible for Margot Hull.

She’s returning to her childhood home for her parents’ funeral. But this isn’t a normal homecoming. Margot has been estranged from her parents for years, ever since they sent her away to live with her grandmother when she was young.

And they never reached out to her again.

Can you imagine?

Now both of her parents are dead, and she’s suddenly back at Gallows Hill Winery, trying to make sense of a family and a place she barely knows anymore.

Then there’s the viewing.

Something about the way her parents died was clearly horrific. The mortician did the best he could, but Margot is completely unprepared for what she sees.

And here’s something Darcy Coates does so well: she doesn’t immediately explain everything.

You know something awful happened. You know there’s more to the story. But you have to keep reading to find out what.

We eventually learn why Margot’s parents sent her away, too. But at the beginning, I just felt so sorry for her.

She didn’t ask for any of this.

There’s Something Very Wrong With Gallows Hill

As Margot begins settling into the estate, we meet Kant and Andrew.

And almost immediately, you get the feeling that these two know a whole lot more than they’re telling her.

There’s a strange history surrounding Gallows Hill. People in town whisper about the property. People were hanged there, and the Hull family has owned the land for generations.

Margot is something like the twelfth generation of Hulls connected to the estate.

That’s a lot of family history.

And unfortunately, it’s not good history.

At first, there are just things Margot can’t explain. But then nighttime comes.

And the dead start moving.

Seriously. Can you imagine being alone in an enormous old house, knowing that when the sun goes down, something is going to come after you?

Not just haunt you. Not just make strange noises or move things around.

Actually come after you.

And it gets worse every night.

Margot ends up with a broken arm. Kant loses an eye, and we learn he’s already lost a leg because of what happens on the property.

Meanwhile, everyone keeps telling Margot that things should eventually settle down.

Except they aren’t settling down.

They’re getting worse.

And apparently, this is the worst anyone has ever seen.

The Curse Is Even Worse Than I Expected

One of the most disturbing things Margot discovers is that Gallows Hill doesn’t just haunt the Hull family.

It traps people.

Anyone who works at the winery and stays there long enough becomes tied to the land. They can’t simply quit and move away. They can’t go home and start over.

They’re stuck.

That means Kant and the other employees aren’t just dealing with an unpleasant job or a creepy workplace. They’re prisoners of something they don’t fully understand.

I thought this was such an interesting part of the story because it made everything feel so hopeless.

You can’t fight the creatures. You can’t escape the property. And nobody seems to know how to stop what’s happening.

But Margot isn’t willing to accept that.

And that’s one of the things I loved most about her.

Let’s Talk About Those Twists

Major spoilers ahead! If you haven’t read Gallows Hill yet, you might want to stop here and come back after you finish it. Because I want to talk about what Margot discovers, what she does about it, and that ending.

Margot Refuses to Give Up

I absolutely loved Margot’s determination.

Don’t get me wrong. She’s terrified. Who wouldn’t be?

She’s being chased and attacked by things that shouldn’t exist. She’s injured, exhausted, and surrounded by people who seem to believe there’s nothing they can do.

But she doesn’t just accept that this is her life now.

She starts asking questions.

She tries to understand what these creatures want. Why are they there? Why are they attacking? What happened on this property that was so terrible?

And when she discovers a journal in the attic, everything starts coming together.

It turns out that the Hull family history is even more horrifying than the rumors suggest.

The Truth About Ephraim and Ezra

The land and winery rightfully belonged to Ezra Hull.

But his brother, Ephraim, wanted it for himself.

And he was willing to do something absolutely monstrous to get it.

Ephraim murdered his brother and his brother’s family, then took the property and everything that came with it.

And for generations, his descendants have benefited from what he stole.

Margot is one of those descendants.

Suddenly, the haunting makes sense.

The dead aren’t simply tormenting people because they enjoy it. They want justice.

They’ve been waiting for generations.

There was even a police search of the property many years earlier, but the missing family was never found.

And every fifty years, things get worse.

Now Margot understands why.

They want someone to finally uncover what happened to them.

And she’s determined to be that person.

I Loved How Margot Treated the Spirits

This might have been my favorite part of the entire book.

Once Margot realizes what’s happening, she changes the way she approaches the entities.

Instead of treating them only as monsters, she starts treating them as victims.

She talks to them. She tells them she’s trying to help. She promises that she’s going to do everything she can to make things right.

And something amazing happens.

They begin helping her.

When Margot makes her way through the tunnels beneath the property, the spirits seem to guide her.

They move out of her way. They appear to block certain passages while leaving others open.

I kept wondering whether they were deliberately leading her somewhere.

And they were!

I loved this because it completely changed how I viewed the haunting.

These were terrifying creatures, absolutely. But they were also people who had suffered something horrific and had never received justice.

Margot recognized that.

And I think they recognized that she was different from the Hulls who came before her.

The Wine Barrels! Oh, My Goodness!

When Margot finally reaches the room the spirits have seemingly led her to, she knows exactly where she is.

It’s the room containing the winery’s most valuable barrels.

And these aren’t just ordinary wine barrels.

They’re made from the very tree where people were once hanged on Gallows Hill.

How creepy is that?

Then Margot does something I absolutely loved.

She starts smashing them!

Millions of dollars’ worth of wine, destroyed.

And she doesn’t care.

Because by this point, she knows that whatever is hidden there matters far more than the winery’s money or reputation.

And what does she discover?

Six bodies.

Ezra Hull, his wife, and their children.

The family Ephraim murdered all those years ago.

They had been hidden away while generations of Hulls continued profiting from the property.

It was horrifying. Disgusting. And incredibly satisfying to finally learn the truth.

Margot had found them.

And now she could finally give them the justice they’d been denied for so long.

And Then There’s the Ending

I loved the way this book ended.

Margot knows exactly what she’s about to unleash.

Six bodies discovered on the property? A generations-old family murder? One of the winery’s founders responsible?

Can you imagine the scandal?

There will be police investigations, reporters, questions, and probably a media circus unlike anything the town has ever seen.

The winery could lose everything.

And Margot is willing to face all of it.

She’s not going to hide what happened to protect her family’s reputation or preserve the business.

She’s going to do the right thing.

And Kant is right there with her.

I absolutely loved that!

The book doesn’t walk us through every investigation, every news story, or every consequence. It leaves us knowing that Margot has a long road ahead of her.

But she’s ready for it.

And honestly, I thought that was a wonderful way to end the story.

What About Margot’s Parents?

One thing I kept thinking about after finishing the book was Margot’s parents.

And all the Hulls who came before them.

They had to know, didn’t they?

Maybe not every single detail of what happened, but they certainly knew there was something terribly wrong with the property.

They knew about the curse. They knew how dangerous it was.

And yet the family continued living there, running the winery, and keeping its secrets.

It also makes Margot’s childhood even sadder.

Her parents sent her away, and we eventually understand why. But she spent all those years feeling abandoned without knowing the truth about what she’d been spared.

It’s awful to think about.

And it’s another reason I appreciated Margot’s determination to break the cycle.

She wasn’t going to become another Hull who simply looked the other way.

My Final Thoughts on Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates

What an incredibly creepy book!

I can’t say enough about how well Darcy Coates builds the atmosphere in Gallows Hill.

The enormous old house, the winery, the tunnels, the history of the land, and those terrifying nighttime encounters were all described so vividly.

I could practically see the movie playing in my head as I read.

And speaking of movies, this would make an amazing one!

I can already picture the old winery, the dark tunnels, the creatures appearing at night, and Margot desperately trying to figure out how to survive.

But what really made the story work for me was Margot herself.

She was scared, but she was also brave. She cared about what had happened to Ezra and his family, and she wasn’t willing to sacrifice justice to protect her inheritance.

That made the ending so much more satisfying.

If you love supernatural horror, haunted houses, creepy family histories, and stories with secrets that have been buried for generations, I definitely recommend Gallows Hill.

Darcy Coates really knows how to make a story terrifying without losing the human side of it.

And this one was absolutely fantastic.

For more creepy reads, supernatural mysteries, and psychological thrillers, visit my Book Reviews page.