Aspiring paranormal podcaster Sara Garrison desperately wants to make it big online. So when she gets the opportunity to finally put her journalism degree to use and build her brand, she seizes it and travels halfway up her province to the troubled town of Coalbrook.It is in that small town, imprisoned by the sprawling forests of remote British Columbia, that she seeks to interview the relatives of a teenage boy who vanished without a trace just under a year ago. Her only obstacle is her hylophobia - her often debilitating fear of forests; that, and the obstinate commander of the local RCMP detachment, Staff Sergeant Steven Boyko, who doesn't want her unearthing old bones.But as she digs, her professional dreams collide with her personal nightmares, both tangled in local beliefs that speak of an unnamed darkness that grows as the cold deepens. And when another teenager vanishes, Sara finds that she might leave Coalbrook with more content for her podcast than she ever imagined - and that some phobias are worth holding on to in THE EMPTY PLACES.