The Kingdom Behind Knock: 3

Thanksgiving at home is filled with food, family, sleeping cousins, and grown-ups discussing the most boring subjects imaginable. Carson and Sloane are desperate for something exciting to happen. Then they hear the knock. It is not coming from the front door. It is coming from upstairs--from inside the mysterious storybook they promised themselves they would leave alone. When Carson opens the book, every clock stops at 3:17. Their family freezes in place, and a frightened boy appears beyond a strange golden-violet doorway, begging for help. To restart time and save Thanksgiving, Carson and Sloane must return to the Storybook Kingdom. But the kingdom is disappearing. Endings are vanishing, characters are forgetting their names, and entire stories are becoming trapped in endless loops. Beyond a mysterious black door lies the Kingdom of Almost, a forgotten place filled with abandoned characters and unfinished tales. Its young ruler, Neverwas, believes stealing endings is the only way to give his people the futures they were denied. His actions, however, have awakened the Keeper of Once--an ancient force determined to make every story follow one path and reach only one ending. Joined by Lumen the dragon, Augustus Whiskers, and a nameless girl searching for her missing story, Carson and Sloane must cross a maze of lost chapters, a sea of unspoken words, and a city built from choices that almost happened. To save their family, the kingdom, and every story caught between them, the siblings must discover that an ending does not have to close a door.