West of Wicked

Dorothy Gale doesn’t know where she came from. She has only the vaguest memory of anything before life in the dull, gray world of the vast Kansas prairie:

She remembers wanting to go home and clinging to a woman who wasn’t her mother. There was a summer storm, wind so violent it made her hair stand sideways. The woman handed Dorothy over to two strangers and begged them to please take her. She doesn’t remember the woman well, but she remembers the blood on her face.

Dorothy’s older now, and she feels like she’s missing something vital in her life. It’s only when she’s hooking up with Edward in the hayloft of the barn that she feels electric—like the world is finally in full color. She’s been chasing that high ever since. Though that high isn’t enough to pin her down when Edward proposes…again. Dorothy knows the sensible thing to do is settle down with him, but she is torn—she wants to find out who she really is, and to do that, she needs to leave Kansas. But Henry and Em took her in and raised her as their own. The least she can do is pay them back as they age, and the farm is a lot of work for them to handle alone.

Then a cyclone rips through the night and carries her, her dog, and the farmhouse somewhere a lot farther than Dorothy imagined. She’s in a strange land that’s apparently cursed, shrouded in shadow. And to get home, Dorothy needs to seek out a wizard. To find him, she’ll need to follow a treacherous path and watch out for a never-ending list of dangers: forest beasts, witches, a cursed assassin, and perhaps most dangerous of all, the wizard himself.

About the Author

Nikki St. Crowe has been writing for as long as she can remember. Her first book, written in the 4th grade, was about a gothic mansion full of treasure. While she still loves writing about magic, she’s ditched the treasure for something better: villains and anti-heroes, and the women who make them wild. These days, when Nikki isn’t writing or daydreaming about the bad guys, she can either be found in the woods or traveling in an Airstream with her husband and daughter.