Determined, Elara jumped out of bed and put on her clothes. She grabbed her phone, opened the glass door leading into the kitchen and tiptoed to the hallway. Swear words and explosions still sounded from her father’s forbidden office. He wouldn’t notice her being gone. For a brief second, she stood in front of the door with a pounding heart. The sweat from the nightmare had turned her back cold. She took a deep breath, pulled down the handle and continued towards the safest place that she knew – the Chestnut Woods. Late one night, 10-year-old Elara fled from her nightmares and her self-absorbed father. In the Chestnut Woods she stumbled upon an old lady, Inga, who asked Elara to protect what seems to be an ordinary pinecone, with the words: ‘My life is depending on it. Not just my life – a lot of people’s lives! Maybe even all of our lives!’ Suddenly, the Chestnut Woods was not just the safe place that Elara knew. Meaning that her quest to find her way back home will turn into a wild journey; encountering talking animals, peculiar creatures, dark secrets and countless dangers. About the author Malou Slott is the author behind Moon Child & The Secret of the Pinecone. As a child Malou believed that there was a magical world in the woods close to her home. Her clear memory about that time, has formed to a story that naturally grew out of her imagination and down on paper.