The Whispering Key

#1 Bestseller in Children's Fantasy & Magic Adventure Arlen Quill has one rule: never stare into the river at night. He breaks it the night a storm-soaked stranger with no face under his hood chases him onto the old bridge — and the crystal key in his pocket starts whispering his name. Then the river swallows him whole. He wakes up somewhere no map of Wrenmere has ever shown: Aetherfold Hall, a labyrinth of living stone that hums when it's happy, sulks when it isn't, redecorates out of sheer boredom, and has just decided — for reasons nobody can explain — that Arlen belongs to it. According to Mentor Solen, the key in Arlen's pocket is the Key of Luminara, one of three lost relics that once held a fracture between worlds sealed shut. According to Myra Vex, the sharp-tongued apprentice who fished him off her workshop floor, none of that is Arlen's problem yet — right now there's tea to drink and a building to apologize to. But the Hall is dreaming again, and something old is dreaming back. Aetherfold's oldest enemies — the Quiet Hand, who believe silence is the only peace worth having — are stirring beneath the river, and they want what Arlen carries. Somewhere in the Hall's shifting corridors is a second key. Somewhere in Arlen's own memory is a grandmother who vanished trying to stop exactly this, years before he was ever pulled from the water. With Myra, a reluctant inventor named Tobin, and a building that may or may not actually like him, Arlen has to learn to listen — to the Hall, to the key, and to the parts of himself he'd rather not hear — before the silence wins. The Whispering Key is a warm, funny, fast-moving portal fantasy about a boy, a talking building, and the found family that makes both bearable. Perfect for readers who loved Nevermoor and Howl's Moving Castle. Book One of The Luminara Chronicles. Book Two, The Shattered Light, is available now.