THE UNRAVELING OF EMLYN DULAINE

A young storyteller sets out to find her sister but discovers her own power instead.

Emlyn DuLaine has carried the weight of her sister Camille’s disappearance for seven years. After speaking to a cold-case detective, Emlyn is forced to relive her grief. She notices the world around her losing color, and when a character she created for a story—a dark-haired woman—starts speaking to her, Emlyn isn’t sure what to believe. But when a small, dark blue dragon shows up in her bedroom and leads her to the portal where her sister disappeared, she knows this is her chance to get answers, and she plunges through it. What Emlyn finds is a Novem, a nine-member “special ops team assigned to missions together.” Her mission is to help repair broken stories—the classic tales that “shape culture” and “echo through centuries.” Emlyn encounters Wistlee, a Gryphon with a damaged wing, and Phen, a handsome Sentinel with anxiety. The worldbuilding and descriptions of the setting are nothing short of beautiful, particularly the Ambryfell library, which is every reader’s dream. Franklin weaves in references to stories such as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and A Little Princess. The multiple plotlines and characters can be hard to follow at first, but by the final page of this series opener, it’s clear that everything is intentional. Main characters are cued white.

An inspiring tale about finding yourself and the power of sacrifice and remembering.