Self-Discovery

Emerald lives by routine. Aging and alone, she anchors herself in ordinary rituals, and takes comfort in revisiting the moments that shaped her life: love, ambition, grief, and a quiet sense of purpose. For Emerald, memory becomes both refuge and escape, but past and present begin to blur as the nature of Emerald’s true predicament comes clear. Tender, cerebral and deeply human, *Where the Day Takes You* explores what it means to keep going when time itself has become unreliable … and whether choosing where to be is the same as choosing how to live.

Twelve-year-old Darcie Reynolds has a secret—she’s not as smart as her friends think. Before they discover she’s a fraud, she’s got to find a way to trade brains for popularity. And no one’s more popular than Amelia Davis. So when Amelia invites her to a secret club initiation at an abandoned mountain cabin, Darcie jumps at the chance. The only problem? She’s supposed to be babysitting her two-year-old brother. No worries—she’ll sneak him along and be back before anyone notices. But the “initiation” is a cruel prank that turns terrifying. Tied up alone in the dark, Darcie wakes to find Amelia cutting her free, and blabbering that her brother is gone—taken by a hulking figure in animal hides that disappeared into the storm. Everyone says the Shadow Man steals children. This time, it’s real. Now trapped by a blizzard, Darcie and Amelia must team up to track the mysterious man and rescue Darcie’s brother. But the deeper they venture into the wilderness, the clearer it becomes—the Shadow Man isn’t the monster they should fear. Someone far worse is waiting in the woods.