Book 2 in the thrilling Light Runner fantasy series

2021 Winner of the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Best Fantasy Novel

"A coming-of-age adventure fantasy with a strong and resourceful female protagonist, quick action and fascinating characters. Brown uses his exceptional ability to describe Dara and the events of the novel as if they could exist in our normal, everyday world to make the fantasy elements of the story utterly believable."
--The BookLife Prize

Sixteen year-old runaway Dara Adengard holds an incredible healing light in the palm of her hand. Which would be pure awesomeness, except that she hasn't got much time to cure anyone due to the fact that other problems seem a lot more urgent. When your own cousin wants you dead and others want you alive (but caged in a lab), your best recourse might be to just stay below the radar and totally off the grid.

When Dara Adengard embarks on a perilous mission to take back the healing Lightband that was wrested from her grasp, two people stand in her way-her cousin Mercy, who has the power to afflict instead of heal, and Santos, the head of a shadowy group about to unleash a deadly virus onto a fragile, damaged world.

Her wrist shattered in a fall, Dara is airlifted to a secret government medical facility where a newly found fragment of element 120-X-main component of the Lightband-is implanted in her wrist bone, enabling her to heal with her hand. The medical facility comes under assault, and Dara escapes to the California desert with the help of an enigmatic Jamaican martial arts expert named Seb. Still bearing emotional wounds from her mother's death, Dara trains for the gathering storm. When the desert hideout is attacked, Dara sets out alone to reunite with Diego, the boy she's fallen in love with, and their faithful dog Linc.

Determined to find and take back her mother's stolen birthright, Dara discovers the stunning secrets of her own family's buried past and the extraordinary DNA code that flows in her veins.

Philip Brown, author of Light Guardian, says, "The Light Runner series is essentially the story of a teenage girl, Dara, who can't get over the sudden death of her mom. Dara's able to wield this magical healing element, but the only thing she can't seem to heal is her own heart. Yet Dara's loss is the thing that really activates the healing device she finds in Book One. So in a way her superpower is heartbreak."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Philip Brown writes young adult fantasy novels with real-world grit. He is the author of a young adult contemporary fantasy series and an astrology book.

Book One in the fantasy series, Light Runner (published by Strange Fictions Press), tells the story of sixteen year-old Dara. Grieving the sudden loss of her mother, Dara finds an armband that can heal wounds. Light Runner has been hailed as an "intense, plot-based read" and a "great read . . . very original-not your everyday fantasy book."

Cosmic Trends: Astrology Connects the Dots (a finalist for the Coalition of Visionary Resources award) was published by Llewellyn Worldwide in 2006. The author has also written for Dell Horoscope and The Mountain Astrologer.

Philip lives in Southern California with his beautiful Pisces wife and two cats, Chrissie and Stevie. They (Phil and his wife, not the cats) are passionate fans of live music, frequently enjoying artists old and new at small local clubs, music festivals, and big concert venues (that is, when it becomes safe again).

Philip is a member of the International Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.