Could Beth truly be the star of redemption prophesized to break the century-old curse cast over Island Demented?

For as long as she can remember, Beth has been the quiet background character in her mom's wild adventures as they've traveled the world in search of the most fantastic stories. All that changes when they chase an old Romanian legend to Island Demented.

Here, they find a mysterious land overshadowed by a century-old curse, where the island's spirits are at odds with the men turned into half-man half-beasts for the horrors they committed long ago. A star of redemption, one who could restore peace to the once paradisical island, was foretold to arrive on the very night Beth washed ashore, and all signs point to it being her.

With the help of a handsome secret prince Beth visits in her dreams, his spirited wolf, and a very special golden dress, Beth's determined to make things right and awaken the islanders turned to stone on the night of the awful curse. She may even become the star of her very own dark fairytale.

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	Preorder Coming Soon!
GENRE Contemporary Fantasy
Available: August 2025
Teen

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Excerpt

Chapter One

Screams filled the Romanian tour van when it hit a hole in the unkept road.

“Oh my!” a French mother sitting up front exclaimed. Beth’s pen scratched a long ugly scar across her page.

“Not again.” Beth tore the paper out of her notebook of recipes and baking notes. A baker’s dozen of ruined pages had collected inside her backpack like dry crinkling leaves gathered in a graveyard. I’ll run out of pages soon at this rate and be forced to take notes on my phone, Beth thought. That would take the magic out of everything.

Madeline elbowed Chelsea. Both sat in the back row of the van. Chelsea grinned and nodded, reaching into her worn knapsack where various things poked through its holes and pockets.

“Never fear.” Chelsea withdrew a thick, heavy notebook with a black cover and the gold outline of a steaming pie on the front. She handed it over to Beth.

“We were going to wait until our last day together,” Madeline began, leaning forward and patting Beth’s shoulder, “but I don’t think your old notebook’s going to last the day.”

Beth’s mom’s wiry brown hair brushed their row of seats when she turned around beside her daughter. “That was thoughtful.”

Beth hugged the notebook. “You guys are lifesavers. But I didn’t get you anything.”

Chelsea held up her phone. “Do you know how much it would have cost to hire a photographer?”

As the bus hit another deep hole in the road, Beth yelped and bumped into her mom. The youngest son of the family up front started crying, drawing a steady stream of angry French from his father’s mouth.

“So sorry, monsieur,” their tour guide Florin said, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. He was a tall man, thick around the middle with heavy dark eyebrows, who spoke four languages fluently and had a grandfather’s patience. It left him now, however, as he raised his voice over the Frenchman. “J’ai peur que nous avons raté notre tour.”

They were halfway through the week-long tour, trundling along a bumpy, overgrown road. Beth doubted it was meant for motor vehicles. They hadn’t passed a living soul in at least an hour.

“Wait, did you say we’re lost?” Beth’s mom leaned toward the front of the bus, the only one of the four Americans who spoke any French.

“No, no.” Florin switched to English with ease. “Not lost, just took a wrong turn. We should head west in some thirty miles. We get back on track to Constanța. This road gets better.” He locked eyes with the Frenchman.

Everyone rose as much as their seat belts would allow when the bus hit a slippery mound in the road and crashed down with a nasty crunch. Heads snapped against chests and contents spilled from backpacks and purses. Beth dropped both her notebooks to grab the seat in front of her. The young boys up front shouted with fright. Chelsea grabbed for her phone, but it sailed through the air and disappeared over the front row of seats.

“Oh my gosh!” Madeline threw off her seatbelt and dropped to the floor to grab all the makeup and scattered perfume bottles.

Beth couldn’t understand what anyone was saying as they all shouted over each other. Only Beth and Kat Lynn were quiet, the latter giving the former a thumbs up.

Beth’s mom was born an extraordinary storyteller and fearless adventurer, dragging Beth along on every writing assignment she could manage.

“What’s that rancid odor?” Beth pulled her shirt over her nose.

“Everyone, please be quiet!” Florin waved. The silence that followed was due only to the bus losing speed and pulling over on the side of the road.

“For goodness sake!” Madeline held up an emerald green bottle with the crystal butterfly broken off the top. “This thing cost me almost two hundred dollars.”

Chelsea pressed her hands against the seat and sat up straight as a rod. “Are we broken down?”

“Just little car trouble.” Florin tried turning the keys over and over, but the tour van remained lifeless. “I call for help and we get out of here in no time.” He grabbed a gigantic phone from under his seat and carried on a staticky conversation in Romanian.

The youngest boy up front climbed over the seats to hand Chelsea her phone. “Merci,” she chirped, searching for cracks.

Madeline climbed back into her seat and started rummaging through her bag. “I hope I’m not missing anything.”

Beth glanced back at her. She’s so pretty. Why does she bother with all that stuff?

Kat Lynn grabbed her phone for a few snapshots of the rolling hills all around them, carpeted green with deer grazing, unaware of their audience. “This might not make for a great story, but your dad’ll love these. And I’ve got three bars.”

“Me too.” Chelsea took a few pictures. “That’s weird out here in the middle of nowhere.”

Beth opened her old notebook to sketch and write about the Romanian dessert she had at the last village, the one she’d wasted so many pages trying to recreate. If only the kid whining up front would get quiet and let her think.

Beth’s mom slid open the windows on both sides of her row of seats.

“Thanks, Kat.” Chelsea fanned herself. She and Madeline slid open the windows beside them. The bus was heating up fast.

Chelsea and Madeline had saved up for this trip since they graduated from high school three years ago. Romania was the home country of Chelsea’s grandparents, the place she’d always wanted to visit. They’d made instant friends with Beth and couldn’t get enough of listening to Kat Lynn recount the tales of where she and Beth had been.

Florin got quiet in the front and took in a long deep breath. The bus grew silent as death when every movement came to a halt. Then Florin turned slow as molasses to face his tourists. “Nous sommes coinces ici jusqu’au matin,” he mumbled, hardly daring to lift his gaze.

“Quoi?” exploded the other man. “Ou sommes-nois censes dormir?”

Kat Lynn turned around and raised her voice. “We’re stuck here until tomorrow morning.”

“What?” Chelsea went pale.

“This is a joke, right?” Madeline gasped. And then their voices joined the angry Frenchman’s.

Beth grabbed her bag and crawled through the chaos to escape the sweaty van.

 

* * *

 

The darkness of night fell soon after. Florin dug into a hidden compartment in his trunk and withdrew a few hammocks, water bottles, and pouches of flavorless chicken pasta for emergencies. He even got a fire going on the desolate roadside with dead wood gathered from nearby trees.

Kat Lynn ate quickly and broke away from the fire to share the story of their breakdown with Beth’s dad like they’d found buried treasure. Her voice mingled with the crackling of the fire.

“I can’t believe no one’s driven by.” Madeline stuffed her food trash into her backpack and laid on it like it was a pillow, the light cast by the fire reflecting against her vibrant red hair. “I could really use a hot shower right now.”

“No one goes this way anymore.” Florin shuddered. “It should be closed off. I cannot believe I took this road. I just got turn ‘round.”

“Why doesn’t anyone go this way anymore?” Beth asked.

“Island Demented.” Florin arched forward, leaning closer to the fire and peering over his shoulder. “People tell stories up and down this countryside of beasts on an island out there. Some even flee this land. No one who sails in these waters ever returns and no one comes this way no more.”

The woman across the fire spoke softly to the boy falling asleep in her lap, brushing her hand against his forehead.

Beth searched the shadows when she realized her own mom had grown silent.

Kat Lynn stood behind Florin, her face alight, nodding to Beth.

Her daughter shook her head, sending her darkish hair sweeping back and forth against her shoulders. Beth had learned to read her mom’s mind when it came to things like this at a young age. She did not want to go searching for some Island Demented where beasts lived and sailors never returned. They stayed locked in a nodding-shaking head battle until Florin glanced behind him.

“I’m in,” Madeline whispered to Beth, her green eyes wide with wonder.

“Me too.” Chelsea nodded, keeping her voice soft enough that Florin wouldn’t hear. “If half the stories your mom’s told are true, this’ll be the best part of our trip.”

“All the stories my mom tells are true.” Beth might not have believed the wild tales of what lengths people would go to if she hadn’t experienced so many break-ins. “But there’s no way we can get the canoes off the top of our bus without Florin noticing.”

“Oh, please.” Chelsea slid a dark pair of sunglasses over her eyes and put on her best spy face. “Your mom’s superpower is figuring out how to get away with stuff like that.”

Beth shook her head once more but knew she was defeated. If she couldn’t talk her mom out of sneaking into a prince’s bedroom to find proof he’d stolen from his own family, what chance could she possibly have of talking her and two of her newest fans out of investigating this creepy island?

Of course, Beth would try reasoning with her mother, but whatever she said or did, she knew tonight they’d be making an unscheduled visit to Island Demented.

 

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