The Thirteenth Hour

Ages 8 to 12, Grades 3 to 7

Fans of Road Dahl and Neil Gaiman will love this inventive middle grade fantasy about a girl who uses a family heirloom to travel to fantastical worlds that may be more dangerous than they appear.

Twelve-year-old Rosemary has been an artist her whole life and especially loves drawing the incredible places from her Aunt Jo’s stories. But illustrating the stories doesn’t mean Rose believes them. And when Aunt Jo gives Rose a pocket watch with instructions on how to use it to access magical dream worlds, Rose just thinks Aunt Jo is being peculiar again.

While Rose is sleeping, however, she enters a fantastical place where each hour of the pocket watch takes her to a different world. There, Rose befriends a trio of outcasts with special powers and joins their war against the ominous Tall Man.

When a bully steals Rose’s watch, she can only look on in horror as dream and reality collide and he’s sucked into the Eleventh Hour. Now, Rosemary must gather magic from all twelve dream worlds to rescue the boy who makes her life a living nightmare.

About the Author

Quinn Sosna-Spear was named a California Young Playwright at seventeen and went on to study at the University of Southern California. She has since written books, films, and comics. Her novels are inspired by her childhood and the untimely death of her own mother. Quinn hopes to share with all readers—particularly those struggling with loss—the humor, poignancy, and adventure in such things…as dreary and impossible as they may seem.