The Hollow Season

A novel about disappearing, not escaping, but feeling real. Isabel Carrington has everything she thought she wanted: a stable job, a loving partner, and a life that seems perfect from the outside. But inside, she's quietly crumbling—stuck in a fog of emotional numbness she can't explain and is afraid to reveal. One morning, she simply leaves. Under an assumed name, she checks into a small seaside hotel in a town where no one knows her. She's not escaping a scandal or a hounding drama; she's simply trying to catch her breath. Living as a ghostly version of herself, she begins writing confessions in a tattered notebook, befriends a cactus, and meets strangers who ask nothing more than for her presence. But when fragments of her old life begin to seep through her silence, Isabel must decide: Is it possible to rebuild a life without erasing what she once was? "The Hollow Season" is a raw, intimate portrait of a woman on the brink of collapse—tender, captivating, and deeply human. For readers of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, My Year of Rest, and The Bell Jar, this novel explores the price of disappearing and the quiet power of beginning again.