If I Die Before I Wake

Not all tales have the ever-after you might expect

The sleeping curse is genetic and hereditary and has been passed from mother to daughter throughout the centuries. Vreni’s is the grandmother was born in 1690, her mother in 1824. Vreni was in 1904, so she should be more than a century old, but her blood contains a sleeping curse. The curse was softened so that her grandmother wouldn’t die but only sleep, and so the women in her family have slept and woken throughout the centuries.

Vreni was born in 1904, so she should be more than a century old, but the curse stops time for them as they sleep, but not for those around them. Vreni is fifteen and has never left her home. Her family say it’s better to stay hidden and keep their secret safe, but Vreni has seen the world she is missing through the internet, now she feels trapped and longs for freedom.

The descendants of her grandmother’s magical aunties, the Wise Sisters, have remained as dedicated guardians of the beauties and their secret throughout the centuries. But they had vowed to do whatever they could to create a cure for the curse. And the need Vreni to make that happen. They have been secretly training her to help them complete the one task they cannot do, regardless of all their magic. The preparations have been hidden behind a glimmer and Vreni has no inkling of her fate.

Vreni’s father finally allows her and her sister Rita a trip to the city, where they meet William. Vreni just wants one normal evening dancing with William, but her selfish actions put Rita’s life in danger and, Vreni believes, that her recklessness causes a chain of events that puts her family at risk of having their secrets exposed and places them all in great danger.

The Wise Sisters ask Vreni to seek out last remaining drops of the evil potion that cursed her family. With this potion in their possession, the Sisters believe they can make a cure, rid Vreni’s blood of the curse and set her and her family free. To redeem herself for acting so selfishly, Vreni agrees to join the Sisters and help them. She discoverers that she was chosen by them as a baby to be their bringer of victory. The Wise Sisters take her to their hidden enclave where the magic she possesses must be tested. Vreni must enter the dream realm, where she travels back to the day of her grandmother’s cursing. As part of the preparations for her quest, she must feel the original potion with her own hand so that she can seek it in the real world. But the dream realm is very reel and dangerous.

Finally she is ready to enter the territory of the Guild of Alchemists, and breach their stronghold, to steal the last drops of potion. But she won’t travel alone, she will have a fated companion, who holds key to the labyrinth. The Guild will stop at nothing to protect their valued secrets. Elemental guards defend the door to the labyrinth and once inside, the winding path to the labyrinth’s heart is brimming with deadly challenges and heart breaking secrets.