Book excerpt: A troubled teen. A magic journal. A portal to another world. "Lucasfilm-esque...[A] strong start to a space saga." -- Kirkus Reviews Olive Joshi is an imaginative sixteen-year-old with OCD. She checks and double-checks that the stove burners are off, avoids driving for fear of causing an accident, and constantly worries about hurting the people she loves. Olive finds refuge from her anxiety in writing stories about Coseema, a magical princess on the distant planet Lyria. Coseema is fearless, confident, powerful, and perfect -- everything Olive thinks she’ll never be. When she falls through a portal into her own abandoned story, Olive finds herself in a world in peril: double suns scorch the planet, the brutal Prince Burnash seeks supreme power, and Coseema has gone into hiding. Bringing back her heroine might be Olive's only hope of saving Lyria and finding her way home. But when her attempt to summon Coseema goes horribly wrong, it's Olive who must flee for her life. Together with her friends -- a bold and powerful poet, a handsome but cursed musician, a renegade soldier with a troubled past, and an adventurous girl from the desert -- Olive must face her deepest fears to escape Burnash's tyranny. With the fate of a star system on the line, can Olive find the hero in herself? The Twin Stars is an engrossing portal fantasy in the spirit of the Wizard of Oz, the Neverending Story, and the Chronicles of Narnia, with a dash of Star Wars and a sprinkling of Dune. Fans of space fantasy, coming-of-age adventures, unexpected twists and turns, and novels about mental health and self-confidence will love this unique tale about facing what frightens us most.