Trial by Midlife Crisis

Description

At twenty-five, Marla Vexley was named in a prophecy.

At forty-five, she’s named in a spam scroll promising “One Weird Trick to Fulfill Your Destiny.”

She’s not a Chosen One—she’s a Chosen Eventually. Four decades, one failed marriage, and a hip that clicks when it’s humid later, Marla is finally called to complete the Road of Trials she missed…and she’s in no mood.
Armed with a sarcastic cursed sword named Kevin, a training manual last updated during the Goblin Renaissance, and a relentlessly perky half-elf coach who keeps telling her she’s “crushing it,” Marla is being shoved through a backlog of magical trials clearly designed for twenty-year-olds.

Each test is more humiliating than the last. One demands she climb a cliff while confessing her greatest regrets. Another pits her against a spectral version of her ex-husband in yoga pants. The stakes? Unclear. The outfits? Impractical.
But somewhere between the enchanted obstacle courses and the motivational chanting, Marla starts wanting to finish. Not because she believes in destiny—but because, for the first time, the story belongs to her.

And she’s not walking the Road of Trials.

She’s stomping down it in orthopedic boots.