Dream in the Ash
(2026)(The first book in the Other Half of the End series)
A novel by Jacquelyn Gilmore
Only when you're facing the ashes of despair can you truly dream. For Audrey, the ashes are about to give birth to an inferno.
Ten years ago, telepath Audrey Sarafian was convicted of murdering her family. She risks telling the truth about the voice inside her head—but with no proof, she’s labeled unstable and sent to prison. When her conviction is unexpectedly overturned, Audrey is released into a world that still sees her as a monster.
The moment she steps outside the prison walls, the truth returns with her. The real killer’s voice snaps awake inside her thoughts—familiar, intimate, taunting.
Hounded by the press and determined to find him to clear her name, Audrey disappears into the city’s decaying underworld, where ex-convicts vanish, addiction rules, and outlawed telepaths are exploited or erased. There, she meets another rare telepath hunting the same man. He understands her obsession. He knows how her enemy thinks. And he offers her something she hasn’t felt in a decade: belief.
As their alliance deepens, attraction blurs the line between trust and vulnerability. But the closer Audrey lets him get, the more she suspects he’s hiding dangerous truths—about the man they’re chasing, buried telepathic experiments, and Audrey herself.
Their pursuit leads them off-world to a volatile desert moon where thought itself has been weaponized by both the government and the rebels, and war is brewing. As Audrey uncovers what was done to her family—and why the rebels chose her—the voice in her head grows more insistent. It doesn’t want her redeemed or captured.
It wants her transformed.
Cornered between the man she’s beginning to love and the voice that knows her better than anyone ever could, Audrey must decide whether justice is still possible—or whether survival means becoming the very villain the world already believes her to be.
Similar to the dark psychic warfare of X-Men, the post-apocalyptic world of Divergent, and the cerebral psychological tension of Donnie Darko, this gritty, slow-burning dystopian sci-fi romance is ideal for readers who crave morally black characters, romantic tension, unreliable allies, and a heroine walking the knife’s edge between sanity and villainy.
Readers Beware: This book is part of a five-part series that ends on a cliffhanger. It's for adult readers and contains mature and explicit content (see the author’s website blog (jacquelyngilmore.com) for a complete list of trigger warnings)
Genre: Science Fiction
Ten years ago, telepath Audrey Sarafian was convicted of murdering her family. She risks telling the truth about the voice inside her head—but with no proof, she’s labeled unstable and sent to prison. When her conviction is unexpectedly overturned, Audrey is released into a world that still sees her as a monster.
The moment she steps outside the prison walls, the truth returns with her. The real killer’s voice snaps awake inside her thoughts—familiar, intimate, taunting.
Hounded by the press and determined to find him to clear her name, Audrey disappears into the city’s decaying underworld, where ex-convicts vanish, addiction rules, and outlawed telepaths are exploited or erased. There, she meets another rare telepath hunting the same man. He understands her obsession. He knows how her enemy thinks. And he offers her something she hasn’t felt in a decade: belief.
As their alliance deepens, attraction blurs the line between trust and vulnerability. But the closer Audrey lets him get, the more she suspects he’s hiding dangerous truths—about the man they’re chasing, buried telepathic experiments, and Audrey herself.
Their pursuit leads them off-world to a volatile desert moon where thought itself has been weaponized by both the government and the rebels, and war is brewing. As Audrey uncovers what was done to her family—and why the rebels chose her—the voice in her head grows more insistent. It doesn’t want her redeemed or captured.
It wants her transformed.
Cornered between the man she’s beginning to love and the voice that knows her better than anyone ever could, Audrey must decide whether justice is still possible—or whether survival means becoming the very villain the world already believes her to be.
Similar to the dark psychic warfare of X-Men, the post-apocalyptic world of Divergent, and the cerebral psychological tension of Donnie Darko, this gritty, slow-burning dystopian sci-fi romance is ideal for readers who crave morally black characters, romantic tension, unreliable allies, and a heroine walking the knife’s edge between sanity and villainy.
Readers Beware: This book is part of a five-part series that ends on a cliffhanger. It's for adult readers and contains mature and explicit content (see the author’s website blog (jacquelyngilmore.com) for a complete list of trigger warnings)
Genre: Science Fiction