Orphan Tree and the Vanishing Skeleton Key

A 2020 Kirkus Review Indie Editor Feature Pick

"A (fantastical) thriller that makes you feel."―Early Reviewer

"A lengthy but absorbing tale steeped in profundity. Brown’s smart, incisive writing ensures the measured story avoids lulls with many surprises." ―Kirkus Review

Told in the style of the hit TV show, THIS IS US, the ORPHAN DREAMER SAGA is a modern-day retelling of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES meets THE DA VINCI CODE in a play of fate that will change the destiny of an orphan and the future of humanity.

Author J. Nell Brown―a New Release Top Ten Bestseller in Children and Young Adult Fantasy (Time-Travel Fiction)—delivers bold storytelling that takes readers on a journey that defies time, from 1018 BC to the present and on to a future of what-ifs.

This second full-length novel in the Orphan Dreamer series—ORPHAN TREE and the VANISHING SKELETON KEY (OT and VSK)—is an ambitious tale where betrayal, harsh realities, twists and turns, and ancient relics converge with angelic warfare and a seventeen-year-old depressive schizophrenic, Daniela Rose Cavanaugh.

Daniela will learn that some dreams should never come true!

A brainiac and classic introvert, she adores her biological research at the world-famous World War II atomic bomb lab, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

But secretly, she has another life: launching on a brave quest to save Earth from a supernatural invasion. It’s totally not your normal college-sophomore stuff!

Releasing the power of the Glass Tattoo―her time-traveling device―Daniela slips through time and explores three realities where she must gather critical clues to help solve an ancient riddle: who is Chi Xi Stigma―666, the antichrist―a dark force that plans to eradicate humans by unleashing a ruthless pandemic and instigating World War III, a.k.a., Armageddon.

Will the Orphan Dreamer―Earth's newest kick-butt Indiana Jones―solve the mystery of an ancient Hebrew statue found inside the ruins of a bombed World War II–era church in Hiroshima, Japan?

Will she complete this mission in enough time to discover the deadly secrets behind an Apache cave drawing―the answer to a mystery that will catapult her on a mission to identify the antichrist and stop his impending pandemic and global war?

Because if she fails, humanity and Earth may not survive Armageddon―the most deadly war of all time where humans must fight an extraterrestrial army of Nephilim, half-demon, half-human beings currently hiding and training on Wormwood, an invisible planet.

Buckle up for a fun fantasy ride. Read the ORPHAN TREE and the VANISHING SKELETON KEY: the second novel (episode four) in the Orphan Dreamer epic saga.

If you knew your ending, how would you have lived your beginning?

About the Orphan Dreamer Saga (ODS)

The ODS defies time and takes readers from 1018 B.C. into a future of what-ifs.

What if Indiana Jones were a naive girl born into a close-knit African-American family in the South—a girl destined to solve her own DA VINCI CODE but who would rather simply overcome the provincialism of her community and find her own ANNE-OF-GREEN-GABLES-style bosom friend?

The ORPHAN DREAMER SAGA is a seven-novel serial interspersed with seven novellas that intertwine three tales across time and space and tells a sweeping fantastical story, spiced with thrills, stark realities, and comedy. This epic tale weaves an intricate tapestry of divine guidance, faith, isolation, hope, and loss as it follows two children from their beginnings to their ends.

After reading OT and VSK, sign up for J. Nell's newsletter. The Orphan Dreamer's team will announce the release of the next story―Episode Six: ORPHAN FALLS, a wild adventure where God’s love cascades like a waterfall and runs freely while He cleanses all our past hurts and failures!