A look beyond the pages of Forged Slumber
A trajectory of the story as it continues in Book Two: Forged Realities, and epicly concludes in Book Three: Forged Sunder.
SPOILER WARNING
This page is intended for potential book agents and publishers. Below you will see the complete, detailed storyline for the trilogy.
DO NOT SCROLL FURTHER
unless you are a book agent or publisher
Forged Realities
It begins with a scream in the dark. Bennett, Cora Jo, and a new ally, Mallory, flee from soul-stealing Night Shades through the twisted dream-realm of Terminus. Just as terror tightens its grip, time snaps back, returning us to where Forged Slumber left off. Bennett is no longer Bennett. He is John Doe, a blank slate awakened in the real world with no memory of his past, not even his name. As he recovers in the hospital, John is befriended by three kind strangers—Cora Jo, Willa, and Nate—unaware that they were once dream illusions conjured during his coma. Now real and living, they take him in, forming a new, makeshift family.
​
Though John begins to build a quiet life, including art classes and a growing friendship with the clever and spirited Mallory, something within him stirs. Feelings of affection toward Nate confuse his already altered mind. Dreams, flickers of memory, and a deep unease haunt him. A therapist named Cassandra, who is equipped with powers of her own, senses his struggle and directs him to Morgaine’s Mystical Emporium. A place unknown to any of them, they already know. A place where the truth behind the veil begins to unravel.
Bennett’s search for identity ignites the fragile boundary between the real world and the dream realm of Terminus. Morgaine helps him perform a dreamwalk, unearthing chilling signs of Hale dark magic and an impending collapse of the veil between worlds. But before Bennett can act, Nate—his best friend and potential love—reveals a horrifying truth: he is Addie Hale’s long-lost brother, consumed by power and revenge. Nate captures Bennett, Willa, Mallory, and Cora Jo. He banishes them into Terminus, leaving Morgaine dead and the veil ready to fall. In a last act of defiance, Bennett saves Willa by teleporting her back to Cobalt Cove with a stolen potion, giving her one mission: find Cassandra. Save us all.
​
Inside Terminus, Bennett, Mallory, and Cora Jo must battle Night Shades, malevolent spirits that feed on fear and twist souls into their own. They ally with two trapped survivors—Elias and Tess—and learn to fight back. But their victory is short-lived. Nate’s power crushes their rebellion, and Tess is lost. Meanwhile, Willa and Cassandra work desperately to heal the veil and bring their friends home. They discover Bennett, having passed through the veil once before, is now tied to it—his blood, the key to repairing it.
A plan forms: Bennett will restore the veil; Cassandra will infect Nate with a magical virus to buy them time. A final dreamwalk allows Cassandra to reach Bennett in Terminus and reveal their intentions, but in a cruel twist, Nate dies, throwing himself from a cliff in defeat, and seals the group’s fate. With the veil intact, the door home is forever shut.
​
Just as all hope fades, Addie returns.
​
She has been biding her time, hiding in Terminus, growing stronger. It was Addie, not Nate, who orchestrated the chaos all along, manipulating her brother’s mind to do her bidding. Now reborn with dark magic and twisted resolve, Addie casts a final, catastrophic spell—not to merge the realms, but to switch them. Cobalt Cove becomes the new nightmare, plagued by horrors and Addie’s rule, while Terminus transforms into a peaceful, barren land—a haunting irony.
​
As Addie seizes control of Cobalt Cove, Willa and Cassandra are left stranded in their once-idyllic town, now a hellscape. Bennett, Cora Jo, Mallory, and Elias walk the now-safe world of Terminus, imprisoned by peace, unable to return, powerless to stop what comes next. The veil stands. But the war is far from over.
​
Forged Realities explores the fragile boundaries between truth and illusion, delving into themes of manipulated friendships, long-buried secrets rising to the surface, and the merging of parallel timelines that force a reckoning with past and present choices. At its core, the story examines how trust can be both weapon and salvation, and how love—especially when unexpected—can twist into something dark and deeply complicated. As realities collide, the cost of truth, loyalty, and identity becomes impossible to ignore.
Forged Sunder
In Forged Sunder, the once harmonious town of Cobalt Cove has fallen under Addie’s reign of terror, with Night Shades scouring the land and harvesting souls to strengthen her growing army. Willa, Cassandra, and a fragile resistance—including Oliver, a devoted doctor, and Kitty, a rookie officer—scramble to rescue the few remaining townsfolk while formulating a plan to stop Addie’s rise to power.
Meanwhile, in the mirror realm of Terminus, Bennett, Cora Jo, Elias, and Mallory find themselves trapped in a surreal limbo, peaceful yet emotionally torturous as they watch their world unravel from afar. Clues in the Terminus version of the Cobalt Cove library and the sudden appearance of a phoenix lead them toward a possible portal home hidden deep in the old Hale Estate, while Willa's newfound visions reveal Nate is still alive and may hold the key to Addie’s undoing.
The story accelerates as Bennett and his team use a magical potion to summon the phoenix, revealed to be a resurrected Morgaine, and reunite with Willa’s group through a daring portal breach. A bittersweet victory is marred by the brutal death of Cassandra, which propels the team into deeper despair and forces them to scatter within the haunted Hale Estate. There, Bennett uncovers a painful truth from the spirit of Eleanor Hale—that his life was never meant to continue and that his survival years ago in a car accident altered fate in devastating ways. Meanwhile, Addie finalizes her stronghold in her fortress on the cliffs and manipulates Nate into surrendering his Hale magic, all while tormenting him with threats against Bennett—until Nate, in a moment of clarity and love, attempts escape aided by the phoenix’s power, only to be captured again.
​
As Addie’s dark forces intensify, a deceased Tess is reanimated to fracture the group from within. But her betrayal ironically reveals Bennett’s latent ability: magical manifestation. With Willa’s guidance and a sacred blue stone, Bennett hones his power and bestows abilities on Cora Jo and Willa. As the group suffers more losses—including the deaths of Oliver and Kitty—they realize Addie is eliminating them one by one. Bennett makes a painful choice to protect Mallory and Elias by sending their spirits back to Terminus while locking away their bodies. With their magic-imbued pendants bearing the blue stone, Bennett, Cora Jo, and Willa become a trio of powerful defenders ready to confront Addie in her fortress.
​
In the climactic battle, Nate is rescued, and the Night Shades are defeated—but Addie strikes a fatal blow to Willa. As her body lies lifeless beside Addie’s on the beach, a powerful twist reveals Willa’s secret pact with the Fates(the all-powerful overseers of life and time): a trade of lives to correct the long-standing imbalance. Bennett sacrifices himself to become ruler of the Veil—the new peaceful afterlife—while Willa is restored to life, now a guardian of magical equilibrium across realms. Nate joins Bennett in the eternal afterlife as soulmates, while Cora Jo, Mallory, and Elias return to the mortal world to live out their lives, with the promise of reunion years later in the Veil. Addie is exiled to a remote realm to seek redemption, and Willa eventually joins the celestial phoenix with Morgaine and Cassandra, soaring above all to maintain the delicate balance between light and dark.
​
Forged Sunder explores the enduring power of love—not only the discovery of it, but the fierce determination to protect it, even in the face of overwhelming darkness. The story reveals that love, in all its forms, can be both a guiding force and a sacrifice, asking individuals to let go of what they once knew to forge a future rooted in truth and healing. It examines how happiness is not always found in the outcomes we expect, but sometimes in the breaking apart of what once was, creating space for something more authentic to emerge.
​
The novel also delves deeply into the resilience of friendship, showing how bonds forged through struggle and loyalty can withstand the passage of time and even separation across realms. While loss and division may threaten unity, the unwavering strength of light and goodness becomes the bridge that brings hearts back together. In a world reshaped by pain and redemption, Forged Sunder reminds us that real peace often comes not from preserving the past but from rebuilding a future with intention and courage.