What if abandoning your family was the only way to save them? August Monk awakens naked in a field of pulsing red mushrooms, her feet tingling with voices she shouldn't be able to hear. One moment she was touring Britain's oldest brewery-the next, she's in a medieval world where women brew beer, commune with sentient fungal networks, and harbor dangerous secrets. Taken in by Margaret, a midwife protecting forbidden feminine wisdom from a zealous priest, August discovers magic in the kind of slowness she's spent forty-seven years running from. Her marriage is fracturing. Her company is failing. Her body is changing in ways she can't control. But here, grounded by mushroom networks that whisper of balance and rebirth, she's finally standing still. When religious persecution threatens to destroy Margaret's community-and the ancient knowledge they protect-August faces an impossible choice: fight for her found family or find her way home. For readers who loved The Midnight Library and Circe-a luminous debut about parallel realities, midlife awakening, and the courage it takes to choose yourself.
