Finding The Lost

Three years older now, our heroine Alicia is on the annual family visit to their mountain cabin in the wilds of Idaho. This is the last summer before starting high school and she finds herself spending more time in the cabin completing summer assignments made by her teachers than doing her normal mountain cabin activities: exploration, discovery, and games of imagination. On a particularly normal day, Alicia takes a break from her school assignments and ventures outside expecting to see her father Richard chopping or stacking wood, and her mother Katie focused on her latest painting of the beautiful surroundings. She was stunned and confused to find them both seemingly frozen, trapped inside an amber colored bubble. No matter how loud she screamed or how hard she beat on the bubble, her parents did not move a muscle, nor did they breathe. The frightened teenager had a gut wrenching feeling that she was the only one who could save them.Alicia had heard unusual sounds during this visit, as if someone or something was calling to her. With the discover of her parents in amber, she had the sudden realization that the Wild Side might be calling her back. This time, she prepared herself by filling a backpack with things she did not have three years ago when she somehow walked through the portal to the other side. With food, supplies, and an extra layer of clothes, she ventures on the most important adventure she has had in her short life. Somehow, Alicia knew she had to get back to the wild side to free her parents from the bubble and she knew that she must be prepared for anything.Once on the other side, Alicia finds herself fearing for her life in the search for answers to the mystery that holds her parents captive. She befriends Tawny, a frighteningly beautiful cougar who becomes her ally and protector when Alicia decides to look for “The Ancients”, beings that her friends in the Wild Side had talked about three years ago. She felt in her heart that they could help her free her parents but could they. More importantly – would they?

Michael Foster lives in California and works full time in the video game industry. He is an avid gamer, musician, and reader. He loves all things horror, sci-fi, and fantasy.

As a child, Michael spent long summers at his family's cabin in Idaho, endlessly exploring the vast Boise National Forest around the cabin and lake, searching for hidden secrets tucked away in the shadowy spaces. Michael continues to spend as much time at his cabin as possible, and the Wild Side Trilogy was imagined and written there. Writing has been an opportunity to rediscover his love of nature and the memories of childhood.

Michael has enjoyed watching his daughter grow into the same nature-loving and adventurous person he is, and draws writing inspiration from both his own experiences at the lake, and watching his family discover and enjoy the woods in their own way.