The Sparkkeeper

Allison Lewis has spent years surviving by shrinking herself: shrinking her needs, her voice, her hope. Writing is the one place she still feels whole—but even that has gone quiet after burnout, grief, and a lifetime of being told she’s too much and not enough.
  Then a raccoon named Thimble shows up. So does Dreamspace: a hidden realm made of memory, story, and spark, where Allison’s words have been building towns, beaches, and a carnival she once drew for her father. At the center of it all is a truth she never expected to face—she isn’t imagining this place. She’s been sustaining it.
  But Dreamspace is cracking. A tar-black force born from Allison’s deepest self-loathing is eating the portal, poisoning the fireflies, and threatening to collapse the realm entirely. To save it, Allison must do the one thing she has feared most: believe her words matter, claim the strange, powerful truth of who she is, and write herself into the world on purpose. Because if she fails, Dreamspace dies—and so does the part of herself she has been too afraid to meet.