Blood Red Woes by Candace Wondrak
A down on her luck college student.
All her life, Rey has had no one to depend on but herself, a lesson she learned when her dad died years ago and left her in the system. Now a college student, she’s trying to make something of herself, but her life starts to crumble around her. The very night she loses everything, she’s drawn to a strange crystal, and when she picks it up everything around her changes.
A twist of fate that brings her to a new world.
Rey wakes in a land called Laconia, with a living tattoo on her hand that glows when its snarky voice speaks. He doesn’t remember his name, but he tells her they’re now bonded, and in order to get back home—so she can have a chance at fixing her life—they’ll need to work together.
An ancient evil waiting for her in the shadows.
But Laconia is full of vast emptiness and death. Dangerous plagues ravage the land. It’s no place for someone like Rey. Only by working together with Rune does she have any hope of surviving.
It’s not long before Rey learns Laconia was ruled by three empresses. Worshipped as gods, the empresses that should have given their lives to protect Laconia have not been seen in years. With Rune’s magic mistaken as her own, she’s forced to take a stand.
As Rey wrestles with her newfound responsibility, an evil being watches her from the shadows, biding its time… an evil that will stop at nothing from destroying what’s left of Laconia, including Rey.
