The Hollow Sea

OutFoxing the Paranormal #4

by Jordan L. Hawk

The dead will not be silenced.

When Oscar, Nigel, and the rest of the OtP ghost hunters travel to Devil’s Den Island, their job seems simple: lay the ghost of a dead medium to rest at last.

But more than one ghost haunts Devil’s Den, and soon the team realize there’s more to the island’s dark past than they’ve been led to believe. As the fallout from century-old secrets closes in around them, one thing is clear: the dead have a story to tell.

And ignoring it could prove fatal.

Genres: Mystery, Horror, Paranormal, Ghosts, M M Romance, Paranormal Romance, LGBT

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 19, 2026

About the author

Jordan L. Hawk writes queer fiction with a helping of eldritch monsters and things that go bump in the night. He's best known for the award-winning Whyborne & Griffin series. He lurks in the forests of Massachusetts, but can be lured out with pizza.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bonus points to Hawk for naming this book after one of Christina Rosetti's more haunting poems. I always enjoy this series no matter what the individual titles, though, because they manage to be scary without being terrifying and inclusive without making it the point.

[Loves · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read Patreon ARC and I've enjoyed it. It's a fast paced ghost story with atmospheric setting, great characters, good dialogues and plenty of action. I've finished it in a day. Nevertheless, there were two big problems that I couldn't ignore:
- The mystery aspect was weak. Very obvious leads and content guidance more or less gave the main mystery away by the middle of the book. The great reveal wasn't shocking.
- For me this book marked the point where Hawk's anti-capitalistic theme turned from reasonable social commentary to plainly disturbing. (Major spoilers)

This is not the first book he'd written with extremely rich villains, nor is it the second. But this is the first book where money and power explain monstrous behavior on their own, without requiring any additional context:
1. It's implied that the pack moved from hunting game to hunting men and cannibalism because they were rich and powerful so game did not satisfy them. However, this is not a natural transition for anyone sane, rich or poor.
2. Ms. Montague risked the lives of her lovers, cruelly manipulated them and lied to them just to protect her family fortune. The words Hawk gave to Robin to explain this behavior were the most damning in the book: "I don't think she loves us as much as we love her. I don't think she can". Why not? Was Ms. Montague presented as a raging sociopath on previous books? Was there some childhood trauma that left her cold? Maybe it's her struggle as a female businesswomen on a male dominant era? No, none of this was mentioned here or used to justify herself. She's just very very rich, so obviously conscience and decency were optional to begin with.
So no. Cynicism aside, the stinking rich are not inherently evil and ruthless, in the same way that the penniless poor are not inherently kind and altruistic. Yes, money and power tend to corrupt people to some extent, but they can't be used as deus-ex-psychopathia the way Hawk applied them here. It's not good writing and it's demonization.

[Joyfully Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Joyfully Jay review.

3.75 stars

The Hollow Sea is the fourth book in Jordan L. Hawk’s OutFoxing the Paranormal series. It nicely picks up the threads of revelations we learn in earlier books, as the gang revisits the ghost from Montague and Lawson’s past. We know that the women dated when they were younger and that the third member of their polycule was a medium who was killed by a ghost. So here we get a nice series payoff as the story addresses that past head on and we see the group trying to help Robin pass along.

As with the other books in this series, this one is a blend of paranormal and a dose of horror. I don’t think this story is quite as scary overall as some of the books (I still get freaked out thinking about the reveal in The Forgotten Dead), but what we learn about the past is suitably horrifying and stomach churning.

I really enjoy this series and the way Hawk has created this paranormal/horror hybrid that is a different tone than many of his other series.

Read Jay’s review in its entirety here.

[Iris · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 stars

[CRM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story, with just enough twist and turns to keep you engaged. I hope there is more for these characters to do.