In the city of Vaelinth, emotions are not felt. They are harvested.
For generations, the Concordat has drained its citizens of joy, grief, love, and rage, converting human feeling into the energy that powers the towering metropolis. The Extraction Towers loom over every district, pulsing with stolen light. Children are tested at nineteen to determine their Yield Potential, and those who feel too deeply are emptied completely, left as Hollowed shells who walk and breathe but never truly live.
Iris Vellacourt has spent her entire life hiding.
At nineteen, she carries a hurricane inside her chest. She inherited her father's vast emotional capacity, the same capacity that made him valuable enough to be Hollowed when she was nine years old. She learned early to flatten herself, to perform emptiness, to become invisible in a city that would drain her dry if it ever discovered what she truly was.
But on the morning of her testing, everything changes.
The examiner assigned to measure her is Cael Morren, the governor's son, a boy she met once three years ago at a glittering exhibition. A boy who handed her water when she was overwhelmed, who told her the truth about the mechanical birds that sang with stolen joy, who looked at her like she was worth something. A boy she has thought about every day since, though she never expected to see him again.
Cael has spent three years searching for her.
He became a harvester to find her, to protect her, to save her from the system his own father designed. He knows her test is rigged, that the Concordat has been watching her since childhood, that they intend to drain her completely. And he has a plan to get her out.
Together, they flee through the tunnels beneath the city, past the great wall that has kept citizens trapped for generations, into the wilderness where rumors speak of a settlement called the Reach. A place where people feel freely. A place where revolution is brewing.
But escape is only the beginning.
In the Reach, Iris discovers that her capacity is more than just vast. It is unprecedented. She can project emotion outward, flooding others with feeling instead of having it extracted. She is not just a resource to be harvested. She is a weapon that could bring the entire Concordat to its knees.
If she is willing to risk everything.
As Iris trains to control her abilities, she and Cael grow closer. Their connection deepens into something fierce and undeniable, a love forged in darkness and tempered by danger. But Cael carries the weight of his family's crimes, and Iris carries the memory of her Hollowed father. The system that brought them together is the same one that destroyed everyone they loved.
When intelligence arrives that the Concordat is increasing extractions, that more citizens are being Hollowed every day, Iris faces an impossible choice. She can remain safe in the Reach, building a new life with the boy she loves. Or she can return to Vaelinth and pour herself into the central Extraction Tower, flooding the entire city with feeling and bringing the system down forever.
The cost may be her own life.
The Light We Stole Back is a sweeping young adult romantic fantasy about love as rebellion, feeling as freedom, and the courage it takes to be fully human in a world designed to make you empty. It is a story for everyone who has ever been told they are too much, and who refused to be less.
For fans of Divine Rivals, A Study in Drowning, and Heartless Hunter.
Autorentext
Sophia Hartford is a contemporary romance author who writes about ambitious professionals finding love in the most unexpected places. Her debut novel, MEASURED RISK, centers on the beautiful collision between career ambition and matters of the heart?exploring what happens when two driven people refuse to choose between success and love.
Sophia is fascinated by stories of transformation. She believes that the best love stories are the ones that challenge us to be braver, stronger, and more authentic versions of ourselves. Through her writing, she explores the complexity of modern relationships, the power of vulnerability, and the courage it takes to build something meaningful with another person.
When she's not writing, Sophia can be found:
✓ Exploring NYC neighborhoods for inspiration ✓ Enjoying vanilla lattes and good conversation ✓ Reading everything from literary fiction to romance ✓ Researching architecture and urban development ✓ Dreaming up the next meet-cute
MEASURED RISK is her debut novel and the first in what she hopes will be a long career of writing stories that celebrate ambition, romance, and the beautiful risks we take for love.
She is currently working on her next contemporary romance novel and would love to connect with readers.