The Hollow Ground
Vera Calloway hasn't set foot in Stillwater in fifteen years. But when a desperate call from her cousin Margot summons her home, she drives back through the rain into the town she swore she'd never return to. The Stillwater she remembers is gone, or rather, it's disappearing. Roads buckle, foundations crack, and the entire town is slowly collapsing into the hollow ground that gave the region its name, a legacy of old mines and older lies. When a body surfaces from a fresh sinkhole on the edge of town, Sheriff Dale Brennan calls it a tragic accident. Vera recognizes the face. It's someone who disappeared thirty years ago, someone connected to her family, to the church, to every tightly held secret Stillwater has buried beneath its streets. As subsidence spreads and the earth keeps giving up its dead, Vera realizes the hollow ground isn't just a geological phenomenon. It's a confession waiting to be heard. To uncover what really happened, Vera must trust the people she once fled: Jonah Marsh, who always knew too much; Ruth Holloway, who keeps the town's records behind locked doors; and Father Declan Howe, whose faith may not survive what's coming. Every step closer to the truth pulls Stillwater further into the void, and the families who built their lives on top of the lie will do anything to keep it buried.