Nine year old Matilda lives with her mother above their pastry shop. She is ordinary girl, not to well adjusted, and having only one friend she kind of tolerates, but not really likes. Her father left Matilda and her mother one day and never come back, but Matilda is convince that he did not abandon them, that something happened to him. To confirm that theory few months before Matilda's 10th birthday, strange things will begin to happen. Matilda will find out that she's not ordinary girl at all and that the world she lives in is not what it seems to be. Once upon a time in the land far, far away... her father was Prince Leo, and her mother was witch Mahovilka. They loved each other very much and they wanted to get married. But the old King Ferdinand the Fearless, Leo's father would not hear about his son marrying the witch and he tried to break them apart. But their love was much stronger than malice of old king, so King called upon his wizard, cruel mage Hrastomor. King hated magic and everybody using it, but never hesitated to use his wizard to achieve his goals. The magic in Fairyland was strange kind of magic, and very few people could use it, and they were called witches and wizards. But the truth was - people of Fairyland were lacking the power of imagination. Those few who could imagine could do magic - because if you imagine something in Fairyland, it becomes truth. So when the time came for Hrastomor to strike unhappy couple, they turned to magic and imagined for themselves world outside the Fairyland. That world grow in seconds and transformed in world Matilda knew as her world, ordinary planet, with ordinary people, where no one knew nothing about magic, or princes or witches, where her family could live happily ever after. But just as Leo and Mahovilka were to be transferred to that world, Hrastomor cast the spell, cursing them to lose their child in 10 years time, when King will claim the child taking him/her back to Fairyland, and stealing memories from the prince Leo, so he will not even remember that he had a wife or child. All of that Matilda learned after she discovered one strange secret - that her cat can talk. And also, that cat is actually her fairy godmother, one of the creatures from Fairyland which were sucked into this world after witch Mahovilka and Prince Leo created it. After confronting her mother who admitted it all, mom told Matilda that her father went back to Fairyland to try to save them from the Hrastomor's curse because almost 10 years passed since they escape from Fairyland. Although mother feared that something happened, because no one heard from Prince since he left for Fairyland, she tried to convince Matilda that eventually everything will be fine and that prince will save them all. But Matilda knew better, and she began learning magic and one day she used witches favorite means of transport - surfing the steam from the pot of boiling water - and went to save her father. She will learn many strange things about Fairyland, have many strange adventures. And of course, there is a dragon in the story because dragons and children are most magical creatures and can defeat every evil.
About the Author: Viktoria Faust is pen name for award winning Croatian horror, SF and children's/fantasy author with more than 30 books published. She is mostly known for her vampire novels, which won her title of Croatian Queen of Horror. She was born in Pozega 1972, moved to capital of Croatia Zagreb in 1996 and since 2003 lives in small picturesque town of Samobor - which is now the stage for her monsters rampages and strange events for her novels. She won four Croatian SF and horror awards: Gaia for her achievements in 1998/1999., and SFera award in years 2001, 2003 and 2007. She began to write as an experiment, when she was thirteen. She liked the experiment, so by now her name (as author or translator) is in more than sixty books. Experiment continues. She published her first story in literary magazine Plima 1999. Since then she published four short story collections with more than thirty stories. Her first story in English was published 2016 in horror anthology "Shadows And Teeth". First novel she published 2000 under the name "Beauty Of The Beast" was published in English by True North Publishing. Her short story collection "It's Hard To Be a Vampire" is published by Online BookClub. Her fantasy novel is published 2018 by The Fantasist Her Christmas horror story "How Matija Tricked Krampus" will be published in "War on Christmas" horror anthology by ChiZine Publications. Story "Screamer" will soon be published in Hate anthology by Alban Lake Publishing.