Chaos Bound (Mist Warden #1)

Jessica never thought it would go this far. Here she was trapped in her own basement with a monster who'd already eaten one of her friends and couldn't wait to sink its shadowy claws into her.
She wasn't anyone's idea of a hero. A bookish computer nerd in way over her head.
If she'd just ignored the visions. Ignored the way the laws of physics seemed to be wavering. Ignored the voice of the Gatekeeper inside her head showing her the arcane secrets of magic, she could be blissfully ignorant of the death and pain stalking her small town.
But you can't look away, once you've seen real evil.
She was shunned by her (former) best friends. Her name was a joke at school. Her parents thought she was either already on drugs – or should be. Her only allies just as fragile and confused as her.
One thing this killer from the past hadn't counted on though...
When the going gets weird, the tough are useless. You need a geek.
CW: Contains swearing and some gory scenes.

I've been making up stories since I was very young and make-believe was my favourite form of play. I learned to read when my older brother did and immersed myself in as many new worlds as I could find. After I read Watership Down at age 6, my Mum stopped worrying about encouraging me to read and started worrying about how to get me to stop.
I remember being told that the made-up worlds I loved were a child's conceit that I would need to grow out of if I wanted to succeed in life. The older I get, the more I realise how utterly wrong this is. In just the past few millennia, humans have moved from chipping tools out of stones to space exploration and heart transplants. Every step on that path was driven by someone who imagined something that didn't exist and someone who believed they could make it reality.
As an author, I want to do my part to bring back a feeling of optimism in the ability of humans to solve our own problems, to grow and become better than we are today.