The Housebook
Pre-release—some details may change.
When inheriting a forgotten desert inn means uncovering a
Hollywood legend's final, hidden truth.
Delia Langford arrives at the Mirage Inn expecting to sign papers and leave—another quick stop in a life built on running from her mistakes. Instead, she finds a crumbling Spanish Revival sanctuary in the Mojave, a leather-bound journal hidden behind the front desk, and the lingering ghost of Claudine Bell, the golden-age actress who vanished without a trace in 1974. As Delia restores the inn room by room, she uncovers fragments of Claudine's last days: pressed flowers, cryptic recordings, and a love affair that threatened to destroy everything. But the deeper she digs into the mystery, the more the lines blur between witnessing the past and disappearing into it—just like her reclusive great-aunt Myrna, who spent decades guarding Claudine's secrets.
With the help of Marcos, a quiet handyman with his own hidden scars, Delia must decide: Will she chase another woman's vanishing until it consumes her? Or can she finally build a life worth staying for? A luminous story of second chances, dangerous obsessions, and the women who choose—against all odds—to be found.
The desert doesn't forget. It cradles things gently—soft footsteps, half-spoken promises, the shimmer of something once beautiful. Out here, nothing truly vanishes. It just waits to be noticed again.
Joe Kovalck Jr
The Housebook
Behind the Story
The Housebook grew out of two parts of my life that have always stayed with me: my childhood trips out west, and the time I spent restoring an old house back east.
When I was a kid, I visited the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico, and California, and something about those wide-open spaces stuck with me. The quiet, the light, the stillness—it all felt peaceful in a way I hadn’t experienced before. There’s a beauty in the desert that doesn’t try to impress you. It just is. That feeling—that quiet sense of presence—became the soul of the Mirage Inn.
Years later, I went through a renovation of my own: an old house in Connecticut that needed a lot of care. Renovating it was rewarding, but it was also hard work. It taught me how much love and patience it takes to bring something back to life, to really understand a place and give it the attention it deserves. That process inspired much of what Delia experiences in the story—what it feels like to fix something, and in doing so, to begin fixing a part of yourself.
At its heart, The Housebook is about second chances, unexpected connections, and the quiet ways places can hold meaning. I hope it reminds you, as it reminded me, that sometimes the most ordinary spaces can end up telling the most meaningful stories.
