Adeline Pierce

In a city where art remembers what the living forget, one woman discovers that beauty has learned how to breathe.

Evelyn Halden has spent her life restoring paintings that seem to know her name. When a forbidden pigment begins to stir beneath centuries of varnish, she is drawn into a quiet, unsettling mystery where creation and memory are inseparable-and where art refuses to remain silent.

As Evelyn investigates the origins of the pigment alongside a reclusive art historian, London itself begins to respond. Mirrors cloud over. Canvases exhale. The air grows aware, heavy with something that wants to be seen. What began as restoration becomes confrontation, and the boundary between observer and creator starts to dissolve.

To stop the spreading breath beneath the paint, Evelyn must face the truth she has avoided all her life: some works of art demand more than care. They demand remembrance. And sometimes, they demand sacrifice.

The Hollow Veil is a haunting gothic literary thriller about art that lives, memory that lingers, and the fragile line between restoration and resurrection. Atmospheric, lyrical, and quietly devastating, it is a novel for readers who love slow-burning mysteries where beauty carries a price.