You will talk about 2016.
You will talk about The Lighted City.
You will be brave and truthful.
You will get to the bottom of what happened.

Paul (Paulina) Hayes loves her cousin Adrian. Inseparable from a young age, they play The Lighted City, an imaginary world where they pretend to live together and can escape a childhood that seems both too sad and too grown-up. But The Lighted City isn’t without danger.

Years later, Paul is struggling with PTSD after a season of turmoil—one in which Adrian is dead, and radio and television are filled with reports of missing children. Just as stability is settling into her life and relationships, Paul is dragged back into the fate that Adrian seems to have scripted for them. And so she finds herself journeying across the country, down into a ravine, and back to The Lighted City, where so much of her childhood played out. Only by doing so can she begin to come to terms with “the day everything happened”—and what has unfolded since then.

With a unique blend of contemporary storytelling and psychological fiction, Play is a haunting, riveting novel that reminds us of both the beauty and danger of imagination.

Jess Taylor is a writer and poet based in Toronto, Ontario. She is the host and founder of the Emerging Writers Reading Series and is the fiction editor of Little Brother Magazine. Her work has been published in a variety of journals, magazines, and newspapers, including Little Fiction, Little Brother, This Magazine, The National Post, Emerge Literary Journal, Great Lakes Review, Zouch Magazine, and offSIDE Zine. Her pamphlet chapbook, And Then Everyone, was released by Picture Window Press in the spring of 2014. In October 2014, Anstruther Press released her first full-length chapbook, Never Stop. Recently, she was named "one of the best alt-lit reads coming out of Canada" by Dazed and Confused Magazine. She also received the Gold 2013 National Magazine Award in Fiction for her short story, "Paul," which is the title story from her debut short story collection, Pauls (BookThug, 2015). Connect with Taylor at www.jesstaywriter.com, on Twitter @jesstaylorwriter, or on Tumblr (www.jesstaywriter.tumblr.com).

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“Play is at once haunted and haunting, a frightening and ultimately compassionate story of the painful and winding path one person takes in the lurch toward healing. It’s a novel full of light and heart even in its darkest moments: a beautiful, compelling debut.” —Liz Harmer, author of Strange Loops

"In Play, Jess Taylor has created a uniquely gentle sort of dread, weaving a story that is compelling and compassionate, and burning with profoundly moving insight about trauma, the power of art, and our deep need for connection.” —Jessica Westhead, author of Avalanche

“Play is at once haunted and haunting, a frightening and ultimately compassionate story of the painful and winding path one person takes in the lurch toward healing. It’s a novel full of light and heart even in its darkest moments: a beautiful, compelling debut.” —Liz Harmer, author of Strange Loops

"In Play, Jess Taylor has created a uniquely gentle sort of dread, weaving a story that is compelling and compassionate, and burning with profoundly moving insight about trauma, the power of art, and our deep need for connection.” —Jessica Westhead, author of Avalanche

"This haunting, disturbing story is one that will linger in your heart and your mind for a long time … Paul’s story is one of strength and determination, and I highly recommend reading it."—The Miramichi Reader

"This haunting, disturbing story is one that will linger in your heart and your mind for a long time … Paul’s story is one of strength and determination, and I highly recommend reading it."—The Miramichi Reader