The Glare

This young adult thriller follows sixteen-year-old Hedda, who has spent ten years living off the grid with her mother, isolated from all technology. When she moves to California to live with her father, she tries to embrace a 'normal' life, reconnecting with family and friends. However, unsettling nightmares and visions begin to plague her, leading her to rediscover 'The Glare,' a mysterious online first-person shooter game. The game carries a chilling legend: die thirteen times on level thirteen, and you die in real life. As Hedda and her friends become entangled in the game, she uncovers a truth far more sinister than imagined, forcing her to confront both an external dark force and her own inner demons to prevent a global catastrophe. This book explores themes of technology's influence, mental health, identity, and courage.

After living off the grid for more than a decade, a teenage girl must play a dangerous game -- and face the shadows of her past -- to save the world from a dangerous dark force, now as a paperback! After ten years of living on an isolated, tech-free ranch with her mother, sixteen-year-old Hedda is going back to the world of the Glare -- her word for cell phones, computers, and tablets. Hedda was taught to be afraid of technology, afraid that it would get inside her mind and hurt her. But now she's going to stay with her dad in California, where she was born, and she's finally ready to be normal. She's not going to go "off-kilter," like her mom says she did when she was just a little kid. Once she arrives, Hedda finally feels like she's in control. She reunites with old friends and connects with her stepmom and half-brother. Never mind the terrifying nightmares and visions that start trickling back -- they're not real. Then Hedda rediscovers the Glare: the real Glare, a first-person shooter game from the dark web that scared her when she was younger. They say if you die thirteen times on level thirteen, you die in real life. But as Hedda starts playing the so-called "death game" -- and the game begins spreading among her friends -- she realizes the truth behind her nightmares is even more twisted than she could have imagined. And in order to stop the Glare, she'll have to first confront the darkness within herself.