August 31, 2026
Provided Images/Kelly Giarrocco; Crooked Lane Books
Carly Hillman, left, who spent 10 years working for 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is releasing her debut novel, 'The Refuge,' on Sept. 8.
As a producer and writer for "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" for 10 years, it was Carly Hillman's job to research the career trajectories of many celebrities who appeared on the show. So when the Fort Washington native decided to transition from television to novel writing, she already had the inspiration she needed.
"It accidentally became this decade-long masterclass in studying people who had achieved the thing they wanted to do, and I got a little bit obsessed with figuring out how did they do it, what made these people achieve their dreams?" Hillman said. "The one consistent thing was ... they believed in themselves enough to try to do the thing, and so it just got to the point where I was like, 'If I love authors, I would love to be an author, what am I waiting for?'"
Hillman's debut novel, "The Refuge," hits bookstores Sep. 8. Set across multiple decades, the story follows three generations of women in rural Montana, two of whom live in a privately-owned wildlife preserve known as the Amarant. When Ava, the youngest, starts digging into her mother's past, she finds that things aren't exactly what they seem, and unearths a decades-old mystery.
Hillman, who lives in Philadelphia, said the initial idea for the main plot came to her while she was hiking. But multiple years passed before she was ready to write it, and it took her a while to find the perfect setting — the southwest tip of Montana, which includes a sliver of Yellowstone National Park.
"Obviously, it's gorgeous and it's full of animals and life and is lush and green," Hillman said. "But also, it felt like the people around national parks have this idea of stewardship in them, where there's a reverence for the land and a reverence for being able to be on it rather than own it and to care for it and know that it'll continue past you and lived long before you."
In the book, the Amarant wildlife preserve merges the idea of a luxury hotel with wilderness preservation. But it's based on a real organization called the American Prairie, which buys private land, implements conservation work and opens the spaces to the public. Hillman said she wanted to include some of those ideas in the book, and explore how everyone has their own relationships with land. Though some of the characters celebrate the work to restore biodiversity in the refuge, others are resentful of the wealthy tourists who keep the space afloat. At the same time, the place that serves as an escape for many visitors turns into more of a cage for Ava as she untangles her family relationships.
Ava's quest to find the truth about her roots serves as the book's main mystery. But Hillman said it's also a story about navigating family dynamics and better understanding the people who raised you.
"It's a book that I hope is engaging and thrilling and it's a mystery, but also it's a family story, and it's about these generations of women," Hillman said. "So I hope that that people get to appreciate both sides of it and be totally entertained, but also learn about a family and what they're going through."
