Picking

Go inside before dark and live another day... Sophie has spent her entire life in her remote, mountain village—picking strawberries, caring for her family, and getting home before sunset. All she wants is to keep her family safe, well-fed, and alive, and she doesn’t trust anyone to do it except herself. Work hard, waste no time, and everything will be okay. However, the nightsnatchers that visit each night want full bellies, too. Fast, strong, and hungry, they’ll eat any living thing. No one knows where they come from, where they go, or how to kill them. All villagers are trapped, fated to live out their days under the nightsnatchers’ reign. After disaster strikes, Sophie’s family dissolves into husks of their former selves, and she yearns for a life free of nightsnatchers. Filled with grief and regret, Sophie leaves her village for the first time, determined to destroy every last one. Nightsnatchers aren’t the only creatures lurking in the forest, however. Spirits, monsters, and fae all call these wild places home. Exposed and vulnerable, she must learn which are friends and which are foes, all while battling the terrors within her mind. To find the nightsnatchers’ secret and survive the ordeal, Sophie will have to turn to others, leaning on their strength to forge her own.