The Chronicles of Ashford Landing- Worthy (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798998726804)

Rowan knows better than to believe in safety. For twelve long years, survival has been his only compass-stealing food when he has to, sleeping where the cold wind cuts least, and never trusting a kindness that isn't bartered or bought. The streets of Ashford Landing are hard, but they have taught him one lesson he clings to above all others: hope is dangerous.

Everything shifts the night he crosses paths with Selene Aubrey. Selene doesn't look at Rowan like the world does. She doesn't see a vagrant boy to be pitied or ignored. She sees potential-something burning beneath the surface, raw and sharp, waiting for the smallest spark to set it free. Against his every instinct, Rowan finds himself drawn into the orbit of the Aubrey family and their centuries-old apothecary.

The apothecary is more than a shop. Its shelves hum with herbs and tinctures, with secrets tucked between jars of lavender and sage. Its walls hold stories that the townsfolk of Ashford Landing whisper about but never speak aloud. Within the manor that looms above it, Selene and her daughters-fierce Talia, steady Elysse, and enigmatic Lyra-test Rowan in ways he doesn't expect. They don't welcome him gently. They don't make it easy. But they don't send him away either. And that, more than anything, begins to unravel the walls he has built around himself.

Ashford Landing itself is no ordinary town. Its streets carry an undercurrent Rowan can feel even if he doesn't understand it. Shadows shift in ways they shouldn't. Doors seem to open where none existed before. The more Rowan tries to ignore it, the more impossible it becomes to deny: the Aubreys are bound to something ancient, and by stepping into their world, Rowan has invited it to notice him too.

As Rowan begins to discover pieces of himself he never knew-flickers of power, strange bursts of energy that leave glass splintered and the air charged-he finds that belonging comes with its own price. Every kindness carries strings. Every safe place hides secrets. And every family, even one that opens its doors to him, demands something in return.

When his spark finally ignites in a way no one can ignore, Rowan must face the truth he has been running from all his life: the thing that makes him dangerous may also be the very thing that makes him worthy.

Gothic in atmosphere, intimate in scope, and threaded with both danger and hope, Worthy is the first entry in The Chronicles of Ashford Landing. It is a story of found family and haunted legacies, of a boy who learns that survival is not the same as living, and of the fragile, frightening, exhilarating possibility that even someone like him might belong.