From the #1 bestselling author of Haunted comes an eagerly awaited standalone novel of gothic horror.
Lillian Ashcroft came to Cauldfreet, a remote coastal town perched between the vast, brooding moors and the churning indifference of the North Sea, to escape humiliation. Her refuge is an abandoned gift shop carved into the cliff face – a place she hopes to restore and revive with ghost walks and lantern-lit tours.
But Cauldfreet’s legends are not for tourists.
The moors hold harrowing secrets and superstitions as old as the town’s infamous landmark – the ruined Abbey. It watches from across the water, broken spires jutting from the mist like bones against the sky, reached only by a swaying bridge of rusted chains that no one dares cross.
Inside the shop, relics linger – cracked charms, bone tokens, weathered trinkets whispered to have belonged to a witch whose curse still stains the land. They are artefacts best left untouched.
As the snow begins to fall, the town prepares for the Hollowing – a festival of midwinter meant to keep the dead at bay. Bonfires are lit, lanterns burn, and villagers don crude animal masks to ward off the things that stalk the dark.
But now, after many years, the protections are waning. And as the fog rolls in from the sea – thick and unnatural, swallowing alleys and doorways, seeping into walls – the foghorn wails into the night, mournful and unrelenting. Not a summons, but a warning.
It is close, slipping along the floorboards in ways no living thing would understand, corrupting the silence of the gift shop – slick and obscene, tasting the air with a tongue that remembers warmth.
Now that the Hollowing has begun, the past is no longer a memory.
It is alive.
Hungry.
And it needs a place to grow.
IN THE HOLLOWING, TONY MARTURANO MASTERFULLY WEAVES A DARK, ATMOSPHERIC, AND DEEPLY UNNERVING GOTHIC TALE – AN EAGERLY AWAITED STANDALONE THAT BLEEDS FOLKLORE AND ATMOSPHERE, AND HAUNTS LONG AFTER THE FINAL LINE.
