Hollow Air

Verity Borthwick

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English

Ultimo Press
26 August 2025

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Historical mysteries; Australian Fiction

Isolation can be hard on a person. It can be hard on the mind, especially when the bush closes in on you in the darkness of night.

In the tin fields of Far North Queensland, Sarah, a fly-in-fly-out geologist, is working alone at a remote mine site. She spends her time in a sort of limbo, never quite fitting into her life at site or back home in Sydney with her fiancé.

Strange things keep happening at the mine site, and Sarah can try to explain them away as the ramblings of a lonely mind, but there are dead bodies from a mining accident a century ago at the old Dulcie Ada mine, still buried beneath more than a hundred metres of rock.

A deeply moving novel that explores the friction that comes with the desire to understand the secrets of the Earth coupled with the knowledge that this can exact a toll.

PRAISE FOR HOLLOW AIR

‘Layered with suspense, subterfuge, and the fractures that absence can cause, Hollow Air moves seamlessly from life above ground to the value of what lies beneath. Verity Borthwick’s female FIFO geologist, Sarah, is tough-as-titanium and a total joy to read. A superb debut.’ – Eleanor Limprecht, author of The Coast

‘The remote mining setting of Hollow Air infuses this novel with mystery and drama right from the start as we anxiously watch its protagonist Sarah confront isolation and uncertainty, both professional and personal. Meanwhile, haunting events from a hundred years before slowly emerge to remind her – and us – that when the earth is violated it will inevitably seek revenge. In a beautifully paced story that never falters, Verity Borthwick explores the tensions between women and men, and the abrasive truth that the past is somehow never behind us.’ – Debra Adelaide, author of The Women’s Pages

‘As starkly disarming and beautiful as its setting, Hollow Air is at once a thriller, rural gothic mystery and love story. This is a sensory wonder that both suffocates and enraptures, with all the hallmarks of an Australian classic. Borthwick’s storytelling will haunt me.’

– Anna Spargo-Ryan, author of The Gulf

By: Verity Borthwick
Imprint: Ultimo Press
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
Weight: 397g
ISBN: 9781761154195
ISBN 10: 1761154192
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 26 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Verity Borthwick has been published in The Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, Island, The Furphy Anthology, The UTS Writers’ Anthology, Aurealis, Science Write Now and Vestal Review. She was the overall UTS 2022 Anthology Award winner and has been shortlisted for the Island Nonfiction Prize, the Furphy Literary Award and the Alan Marshall Short Story Award. When she is not writing, Verity works as a freelance editor and takes care of her two sons. She completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at UTS in 2021 and comes to writing from a background in Geology.