Determined, Elara jumped out of bed and put on her clothes. She grabbed her phone, opened the glass door leading into the kitchen and tiptoed to the hallway. Swear words and explosions still sounded from her father’s forbidden office. He wouldn’t notice her being gone. For a brief second, she stood in front of the door with a pounding heart. The sweat from the nightmare had turned her back cold. She took a deep breath, pulled down the handle and continued towards the safest place that she knew – the Chestnut Woods. Late one night, 10-year-old Elara fled from her nightmares and her self-absorbed father. In the Chestnut Woods she stumbled upon an old lady, Inga, who asked Elara to protect what seems to be an ordinary pinecone, with the words: ‘My life is depending on it. Not just my life – a lot of people’s lives! Maybe even all of our lives!’ Suddenly, the Chestnut Woods was not just the safe place that Elara knew. Meaning that her quest to find her way back home will turn into a wild journey; encountering talking animals, peculiar creatures, dark secrets and countless dangers. About the author Malou Slott is a fantasy writer and storyteller. Since Malou was a child, she has let her imagination run free, and there are clear parallels between the world that Elara suddenly finds herself in and the world that Malou as a child was certain existed in the woods. Malou has illustrated the book in order to pass on her story with as much liveliness as she her self experienced it.