Jaclyn is an Idaho farm girl who grew up loving to read. She developed a love for writing at a young age and published her first book in 2013. She met her husband, Steve, at BYU, and they have six happy, crazy children who encourage her to keep writing. After owning a bookstore and running away to have adventures in Australia, they settled back down in their home in Utah. When Jaclyn isn’t herding her kids to various activities, she serves on the board for her local arts agency, runs a writing workshop, and stays up late writing books in various genres.
Jaclyn’s Young Adult books include The Luck Series, Lost in a Fairy Tale series, Magicians of the Deep, and Two Masters.
Gwen's family had only one rule—stay out of Grandma's garden. And if it wasn’t for her annoying cousin, she never would have broken it. Everything seems fine until she pulls an ancient book from the old well inside.
And pays for it.
A dark magic is unleashed from its prison, and Gwen becomes its new host. Now, not only does she have to learn to use her own magic, she must also keep the dark magic from taking over her soul. Some rules are made to be broken. But breaking this one may just destroy the world.
Snippet:
I crept closer to the well. All the horror stories told by older cousins, all the nightmares I’d had of this place when I was a little girl, came back to me in a rush. Pure, unadulterated fear screamed at me to run. But while I could leave right now—say that the bucket hadn’t pulled up anything—that would mean Craig would win. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Gwendolyn.”
I jumped back. I was sure . . . no. There was no way I’d just heard my name. My heart beat wildly as I took a step toward the well. The rocks around it were rough and dug into my hands as I leaned over the side, expecting . . . something. I wasn’t sure what, but I couldn’t help the twinge of disappointment. If there was actually water, it was deep. There was nothing but blackness. I wanted to relax and told myself there was no way I’d heard a voice, but it continued to echo through my mind.
“Come on, Gwen. We need to get out of here.” Josh’s voice was frantic now.
“I’ll be there in a sec.” Curiosity had won. I needed to know what was down there. It was like something had a hold on me. Terror gripped me as I grabbed on to the handle and yanked on it. The pulley protested, not having been used for who knew how long.
The bucket slowly came into view, and while there was clearly no baseball, the bucket wasn’t empty. A book sat nestled inside, as if it belonged there. It should have been wrinkled and falling apart, but it looked untouched by the water. The title was worn, but I could just make out the ancient lettering on it. The word “Spell” caught my attention. My stomach dropped. No way. This was impossible. Maybe Craig was playing some kind of trick on me . . .
“Gwen! Seriously. Get out of there. Mom and Grandma are back. You know they'll freak if they see you in there.”
I kept turning the crank until I could reach the book. It was leather bound with runes around the edges. A latch with a lock kept the book shut tight. The fact that the book still looked brand new should have stopped me, but I had to know how it got there. It was cool to the touch, but warmed quickly under my fingers. This couldn’t have been one of Craig’s tricks.
“Gwendolyn. You saved us. We knew you would.”
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