The Hollow Hour

Every generation, a Mourvale daughter pays the family debt: one year as warden-bride to the sealed tomb beneath the old estate. Maeve Mourvale is nineteen when the iron ring passes to her, along with the only rule that matters. Never speak to the door. Each night at three the candles gutter and the seal drinks another day of her life. On the twelfth night she takes her father’s anatomy book down the vault stair and reads aloud to keep her voice steady. Something on the other side of the stone listens. Then it says: go on. She has one year and one hour a night. The church that arranged the marriage watches the gate, reads her letters and counts her prayers, and a door with no lock on her side stands between her and the only voice that knows her name. A gothic love story told in twelve chapters by the woman who lived it, sixty years later, to the granddaughter whose name has just come up on the same page. The prequel to The Hollow Vow. No explicit scenes. Chapter One is free.

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