There’s something about the North, isn’t there?
The way the land stretches out into silence. How the sky presses down like it knows your secrets. And the way the snow doesn’t just fall — it settles. Deep. Patient. Like it’s waiting for something to rise beneath it.
“The snow doesn’t just fall — it settles. Deep. Patient. Like it’s waiting for something to rise beneath it.”
You’ve seen places like it on Netflix, haven’t you?
Some twist of true crime, or another drama about an outsider returning home to find that the town remembers them better than they remember it. Maybe you even told yourself it was fiction.
It isn’t.
Not always.
Earlier this year, I told you I was writing two books. One was the long-awaited Haunted 5 — the continuation of a series many of you have travelled with me through over the years. The other was… unnamed. A whisper of a thing. A new idea that crept in when I wasn’t looking.
I started the year thinking it was going to be a brand-new mystery novel for Marco — to the point where I’d already laid down the first quarter of the book — but The Hollowing had other ideas.
The first draft is now complete.
It’s currently in the hands of my focus group, who will be reading, dissecting, and very possibly questioning my sanity over the next few weeks. We’ll be meeting in June to discuss it — after which the manuscript will return to me for another deep-dive, and then move on to my editor.
There’s always a sense of anticipation with these handovers.
But this time, it’s different.
This is my first standalone novel in over six years — since the Haunted series. Since the Sinister series. Six books. Six years.
But The Hollowing is something else entirely — a new gothic supernatural horror unlike anything I’ve written before.
“I don’t choose the books. The books choose me.”
If you know me, you’ll know I don’t plan my stories. Not like most writers do. There are no flowcharts, no pinboards of plot. Just a blank page and a sense of curiosity. I write by instinct. It’s called “pantsing,” apparently — though I’ve never liked the term.What it means is: I don’t always know what’s going to happen next. I don’t choose the books. The books choose me. And I like it that way.
In fact, I need it that way.
Because I want to discover the story as it unfolds — the same way you will when you read it.
Welcome to Cauldfreet. There’s still time to turn back,.
The Hollowing began simply… a woman fleeing her past. A remote seaside town on the North East coast. A gift shop carved into a cliff, crumbling and half-forgotten. Above it, a ruined abbey, reachable only by a broken bridge and a little too much determination.
But there are things in this shop. Things that shouldn’t be touched — and long-standing traditions the locals still practise, even if no one quite remembers why.
It’s winter. The sea is a black mirror. Snow flurries cling to the glass. And something — or someone — is glad she came.
“It’s about atmospheric terror — the kind that doesn’t need to raise its voice to be felt.”
And while The Hollowing may well be a gothic supernatural horror, it’s about so much more than what stirs in the shadows. It’s about grief, inheritance, and the quiet terrors of motherhood. It’s about the pull of place, destiny, and the shifting nature of identity. And it’s about atmospheric terror — the kind that doesn’t need to raise its voice to be felt.
And yes — it has its monsters. But not all of them wear faces.
The Hollowing is currently scheduled for release in autumn 2025. (Which, between us, could mean as early as September. But you didn’t hear that from me.)
So that’s where we are. The Hollowing has been written. The waiting has begun.
And if the wind changes…
It may be coming for you.
Until then —
beware of the mournful call of foghorns.
