What Lies Beyond the Stars

“Something in me knows of a life I was meant to live but for whatever reason, I have not . . . ” Words that ring painfully true for Adam Sheppard, a San Francisco programmer who has spent the vast majority of his 30-something years lost in the dim glow of a computer screen. On the verge of a psychotic break, Adam begins to have a recurring dream of his early childhood and the hauntingly rustic town of Mendocino California where he grew up. Convinced he has left something behind there, something vital to his present sanity, Adam walks away from his current life to figure out what that is. One night on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, lost in thoughts of suicide, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious woman. Later he realizes that she is Beatrice, a long forgotten childhood friend whose fiery spirit and red hair had filled his young heart with immeasurable wonder. The coincidence of their reunion only deepens as Adam discovers that Beatrice has returned to Mendocino also due to a recurring dream, eerily similar to his own. Are they lost soul mates drawn together through time and space? As Adam begins to hope that his life could be more than a bleak virtual wasteland, he finds himself a pawn in a game that pits dark forces against those few quixotic souls who still search for meaning, beauty, and magic in the world.