The Whispering Oaks of Duskmere

Emily Vane thought she was empty. She didn't realize that was her greatest qualification. After eleven years and a hollowed-out marriage, Emily returns to her childhood home of Duskmere-a town where the light fails early and the trees turn the color of old blood. She hoped for silence to heal her own wounds; instead, she found the Whispering Oaks. The oaks grow over a wound in the world-a bleeding gap that anchors an ancient hunger known as the Hollow King.
For centuries, the town was protected by a Warden and a Bearer, tasked with binding the darkness during the "thinning" of an eclipse. But the last ritual in 1984 failed gruesomely, leaving a scar that has been leaking into the town for forty years. Now, as the longest eclipse in a century approaches and the people of Duskmere begin to vanish, Emily is drawn into a forgotten legacy. Guided by the enigmatic Silvanus-a man who casts no reflection-she must confront a terrifying truth: her personal grief isn't a flaw.
It is the vessel. To save Duskmere, Emily must learn that being "beautifully hollow" is the only way to become the boundary that holds the darkness back. In this gothic tale of sacrifice and survival, she discovers that emptiness is not the absence of worth, but the space where healing begins.