Monica should have known better than to remain in New Hope. How stupidly optimistic, how naïve, she'd been. Why did she think her life could be anything but pain and sorrow and regret? Why did she think she could just be okay with murdering her ex-husband, even if he was a blood-thirsty werewolf? Why does she think, now, that drowning her sorrows in alcohol is the answer? So much for Lex being the one who needs to her get shit together.

Lex. Monica knows she's pushing her away, but she can't just forget her life before, can't forget the man he once was, who they once were.

Who she once was. Who she and Lex could have been.

All that possibility...gone.

Her only refuge is her bookstore, The Second-Last Word, which she built on the ashes of the one once owned by her father. More pain, sure, but at least it's been dulled by the passage of time.

Then, in a fit of pain and anger and grief, she calls the number of the bookstore her father owned, destroyed three decades ago.

And he answers. And he knows who she is.

In the span of seconds, everything-absolutely everything-Monica thought she knew is turned upside down. Can she find the strength to not only save herself but the lives of all those she's ever loved? Can she save her father, three decades in the past?

Can she end a cycle born of an aphotic darkness?

"OMG, I have not been breathing! These pages have been terrible but also beautiful and strangely moving."

Jennifer Dinsmore, editor of The Aphotic series