For 18-year old Janelle, the transition from high school senior to practitioner of the magic arts is traumatic. Ripped from her comfortable suburban life, she is stranded in a wild land where elemental monsters roam the countryside. With her memories in tatters and her magical abilities inconsistent and limited by debilitating headaches, Janelle struggles to find her standing in this world, unsure whether it’s a “real” place or the product of a comatose or diseased mind. After proving her value to the citizens of a small community, Janelle must travel on a journey of self-discovery, seeking not only to better understand her talents but to determine how the secrets of her past might inform her present. And, even as she attempts this, genocidal forces begin massing with the goal of claiming the world as their own by annihilating its current inhabitants.

From James Berardinelli, the author of “The Last Whisper of the Gods” trilogy, comes a new saga that combines epic fantasy, subtle romance, and dimension hopping. “Lingering Haze” is the first book of “The Elusive Strain”, a series that invites readers to accompany Janelle as she battles evil while exploring a fantastical new world and seeking to uncover the truth about the events that led to her being summoned.