Tired of only being liked for his money, Dave had decided to make people take notice of him because of who he was. The problem was, that a guy who liked to go on bike rides through the neighborhood he lived in and occasionally the nearby park and spent the rest of his time watching cartoons and reading adventure and fantasy stories written for children was not someone particularly noteworthy. At least, it didn’t seem to be. But a guy who went on real adventures straight out of stories, well, that was a whole other matter.

I was a huge fan of fairytales and adventure stories with high fantasy settings. It was why once I had a few spare bucks a month, I subscribed to Fairytale Friends and began collecting their figurines and stuffed animals. When I found myself invited to a special picnic event the company was throwing, travel included for free, I jumped at the chance, even though I was positive it would be mostly kids with their parents. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Socially prominent and media darlings, the world thinks their lives are a fairytale. It is, but not the way people think. Larry is used to hiding the cruel way he’s treated, blamed for any and every thing that doesn’t go the way his mother and three older siblings want them too. His sole comfort is his stuffed dog, Mr. Bingles, his collection of vintage sci fi toys, and the imaginary daddy he pretends cares and loves him.

Matt Russo knows better. Everyone does, but no one knows better than an attorney who routinely works with the fae: you watch what you say, or else you find yourself in the crosshairs of trickster magic. Or in this case, with an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other. And the ridiculous bickering celestial beings aren’t going anywhere until they help him change his perpetual single status. Worse, if someone finds out he used magic for any kind of gain, his personal and professional reputations might never recover.

A thousand years ago, my great-something uncle founded the Collective, a secret organization dedicated to protecting humanity from demons. The hunter tradition has been passed down over the generations, from parent to child, secure in the knowledge that the Collective is a community of safety and knowledge. But betrayal sucks, and six years ago, it turned my world—and the Collective—upside down. After generations of deception, the hunters left behind are picking up the pieces and trying something we’ve never done before—working side by side with our enemy.