13y/o Alfie is trapped nightly in others’ dreams. A strange school promises control, but a troubled past overshadows his slumbering lessons.

Thirteen-year-old Alfie Mallor is tired of being trapped in other people’s dreams. And with the recent loss of his father looming over Alfie’s days, he’s desperate to call his nights his own. When Alfie learns his eighth-grade final is actually an entrance exam to a school for those with his slumbering gift, he’s filled with hope.

But hope, it turns out, doesn’t count for much on a test. After failing, Alfie dives deep in a history book where he discovers Revery, the strange school that turned him away. There, students can create their own dreams—and if the pages are true—they can even create their days. Fortunately, Revery’s new headteacher has reason to believe they need Alfie as much as he needs them. Despite her faculty’s fierce opposition, she extends the boy who failed an unexplained invitation to attend.

He’s barely arrived when it becomes painfully obvious every student knows he didn’t earn his way in. Desperate to prove, especially to himself, that he belongs, Alfie is soon chasing whispers of a long-unsolved murder. But when events begin to mirror the troubled past, Alfie’s ill-conceived hunt puts the future of the school—and a friend’s life—at risk. To save both, Alfie Mallor must learn to control more than just his dreams.

ALFIE MALLOR: REVERIE AT SUNRISE is a 62,000-word middle grade fantasy with series potential that will appeal to readers of Lisa McMann’s The Unwanteds series and Ryan Calejo’s Charlie Hernandez series.