Shadows Beyond The Dark OZ: Karen's Curse

Synopsis – Shadows Beyond the Dark OZ: Karen’s CurseThey said the Yellow Brick Road led to wonders. They never said it led to nightmares.During a séance meant to call on the dead, Psychic Rose tears open a portal not to peace but to peril—and Karen Baucum McKeown is pulled through. One moment she is surrounded by candles and chanting, the next she is hurled into a fractured Oz, a kingdom of shadows where nothing is as the stories promised.The Scarecrow is no kindly fool but Uncle Wayne, stitched together with straw and sarcasm, hiding his unraveling under sharp wit. The Tin Man, played by Uncle Bill, has a heart rusted black with regret. Uncle Tom, as the Cowardly Lion, fights his fear with bravado, though every roar rings hollow. And waiting beyond the Emerald City’s gates are two wicked sisters—Aunt Martha and Aunt Omatine—witches whose cruelty is only rivaled by their sass.But the greatest horror lies not in who stands beside Karen, but in what stands against her. Oz itself is broken, ruled by a Hollow King who rises from the Emerald haze, his porcelain mask cracked, his chains feeding on the bloodline of the Waltmans. Every step on the Yellow Brick Road brings Karen closer to him, and closer to the truth: the curse that has haunted her family is no longer content to linger in shadows. It wants her.Haunted by ghostly cameos of her kin, stalked by whispers from the dead, and caught between fire and silver chains, Karen must choose. Is she the bride of the curse, destined to be bound forever, or its executioner, willing to burn herself to end it? Her decision will not only decide her fate in Oz, but what follows her back into the living world.Dark, Gothic, and seared with family blood, Shadows Beyond the Dark OZ: Karen’s Curse is the first chapter in a harrowing trilogy that drags the Waltman legacy into the haunted heart of Oz. The road home is paved not in gold, but in ash—and Karen will learn that in every world, curses cast the longest shadows. Read more