Description

Some names keep. Others wake. A few should never be spoken at all.

When nineteen-year-old Elara returns to her grandmother's ridge house in the Appalachian hollow, she finds more than heirlooms waiting. A sycamore tree as pale as bone stands watch, a cracked pocket watch stops at 10:17 each day, and a ledger filled with rules whispers what it costs to live here:

Kin before names. Bread before bargains. Never pay in leaving.

The hollow keeps storms, secrets, and sometimes people. If you feed it heels of bread and speak plain, it will mind its side of the fence. But when developers try to rename the land, when a brass bell reappears on the mantel, and when a man who seems as timeless as the ridge itself begins to walk her path, Elara must choose what to keep—and what to wake.

Rooted in Appalachian folklore and written with a gothic, modern edge, Names We Don't Say blends community and mystery, ordinary work and otherworldly rules, love that asks permission, and the dangers of names spoken too loud.