The Rootkeeper's Promise: The First Instalment of The Masters' Riddle Chronicles.

Elara Thorne buried the hum of the earth beneath a mountain of peer-reviewed papers. She thought data could save the land her grandmother called sacred.

She was wrong.

Seven years ago, Elara left the Kansas prairie—and the boy she loved—to become a celebrated soil scientist. But when her dying grandmother summons her home, she finds the ancient grove rotting from a mysterious blight, the land choked by drought, and Caleb Blackwood still waiting, his blue eyes shadowed with loss.

Her grandmother's final message is impossible: The rootkeeper's promise must be kept.

Now Elara must undergo a trial that will awaken a gift she has spent half her life running from—the ability to hear the whisper of the mycelia, to listen to the song of the earth itself, and to weave the broken threads of a hidden network of life.

The grove is calling. The hum is rising.

She must decide: will she remain a scientist, or will she become a steward?

The Rootkeeper's Promise is the first book in The Riddle Chronicles—a 33-book YA epic of regeneration, identity, and the unbroken web of life. Perfect for readers who loved Dune's ecological vision, The Overstory's reverence for nature, and the world-building of The Broken Earth trilogy.