Winner: 2016 Publishers Weekly's BookLife Prize in Fiction, Young Adult Winner: 2016 Moonbeam Gold Medal, Young Adult Fiction Winner: 2017 Royal Dragonfly First Place, Young Adult Fiction Winner: 2017 Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award Nominated for the 2018 IndieNext List Which reality would you choose? Seventeen year-old Emily's dad is in prison for securities fraud and her mom's strung-out on pain meds, leaving Emily to parent herself and her younger brothers and sister. She's got things mostly under control until a couple weeks before Dad's release, when voices start whispering in her head, and Gabe, the hot lifeguard at the pool, notices the strange brands engraved on her arm...the ones she's trying desperately to hide. Emily doesn't know how the symbols got there or what they mean. They appeared overnight and now they're infected and bleeding. She's pretty sure she's losing her mind. Stress, insomnia, and her wounded egos drive Emily to self-medicate, which has to be why the nightmares from her childhood have resurfaced, why they're commandeering her conscious even when she's awake. It has to be why the fairytale creatures she created as a little girl insist they need her help. Triggered by the return of her childhood abuser and unable to cope with reality, Emily slips completely inside her elaborate fantasy world. She's powerful in the First Realm, maybe even more powerful than her attacker. It would be so easy to stay there, to lose herself in enchantment...to lose herself in love. But something sinister lurks in the forest shadows. Emily soon discovers her demons have followed her inside her fairytale. They're hunting her. With the help of the Fae, she frantically searches for the weapons she needs to defeat her greatest fears and escape back to reality before the man who tortured her can prey on her younger brothers and sister, too. Time is running out... \*Non-explicit Trigger Warning: This book deals with issues of child molestation and abuse.

What if the worst thing isn't that they don't believe you? What if the worst thing is that they just don't care? Seventeen year-old Emily has accepted the truth of her past trauma and made peace with her battered egos. She's won the first battle...barely...but the war in her psyche still rages. The same day Mom is released from rehab and Emily finishes detox, Dad announces he's ready to be a family again, throwing Emily into panic. Determined to protect her younger brothers and sister from Dad, she gathers the strength to do the hardest thing she's ever done: speak her Secret. But it isn't enough. Nobody will intervene. Emily is more alone and helpless than ever. Her therapist suggests that the key to resolving her crises lies within the mysterious First Realm, where Emily has access to her Fae abilities and where she can find her Champion…the one person with enough power to end the destructive cycle of abuse and help Emily transform from victim to survivor. Desperate for guidance, Emily returns to the First Realm only to discover the Seven Kingdoms in total chaos. She has just a few days to find her Champion before Dad comes for her. Can she complete her task and return to the Second Realm in time to save her family, or will her dreaded premonition turn out to be true: that she is her own worst enemy? Non Explicit Trigger Warning: This book deals with issues of child molestation and abuse.