West of Wicked

Author: Nikki St. Crowe

Releases April 14, 2026. West of Wicked is a dark, adrenaline-charged reimagining of Oz built for readers who want danger, mystery, and a heroine pushed far beyond the edge of the known world. Dorothy Gale has never known where she truly came from. Left on Em and Henry’s doorstep as a child after a violent prairie storm, she has grown into adulthood with questions she can’t answer and a life that has always felt borrowed.

Then another cyclone tears everything apart. Dorothy, her dog, and the farmhouse are ripped out of Kansas and dropped into a cursed version of Oz where every path feels like a trap. To make it home, she follows the yellow brick road toward a wizard, but the journey quickly turns deadly. Along the way she is warned about forest monsters, heartless mercenaries, and wicked witches, and she soon discovers that this land is far more brutal than any fairy tale. In a cornfield she finds a bloodied stranger tied to a pole like a scarecrow, and rescuing him becomes the beginning of an even more dangerous quest.

The mysterious Rook has no memory, but he understands Dorothy in unsettling ways and may be hiding secrets that could either save her or destroy her. As Dorothy travels deeper into hostile territory, every ally becomes suspect and every step uncovers another layer of the truth about Oz””and about herself. Fast-moving, atmospheric, and full of peril, this is the kind of fantasy adventure that mixes quests, monsters, mystery, and survival into a story that keeps the tension high from beginning to end.