1933 Kansas City. The Velvet Lantern is where desperate men drink and desperate women learn to survive. For Stella and her mother, Henrietta, it's home-until a stranger named Jude Callahan walks in with movie-star charm and the kind of plans that end in blood. The Hollow Hours is a haunting Depression-era noir about inheritance, desire, and the price of survival-a story of women who refuse to stay small, even when the world demands it.