In her debut fantasy novel,
Funky Dan and the Pixie Dream Girl
, Courtney Lanning pokes funs at contemporary romance and fantasy tropes with both humor and respect.
Roxie is a sweet trans girl who just wants to spend the rest of her summer vacation playing music with her friends in their band. Living in a southern college town like Fayetteville has its challenges. Dan is a shop wizard who would give anything to escape the store he's been trapped in for a century under the watchful eyes of a witch and a talking fox.
Their paths converge when Roxie is given the ability to travel into dreams and tasked with fighting off nightmares.
Unbeknownst to Dan and Roxie, other dream walkers are searching for an enchanted key, and if they find it, they'll plunge the entire city into a living nightmare. The shop wizard and pixie dream girl will have to team up to stop them, facing their own nightmares along the way.