In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII issued a decree that Christendom would no longer count time according to the old Julian calendar, which–over the course of centuries–had allowed movable feasts like Easter to slip back a week and a half. From that point on, Christians would follow a new, more accurate calendar, which–because Pope Gregory was the one who made it happen–would come to be known as the Gregorian Calendar.

Oh, one other thing. To put the holidays back where they belonged, Pope Gregory eliminated ten days in October, 1582. Friday, October 5th became Friday, October 15th. This made landlords happy and tenants grumpy, but there it was.

Now, you might say the erasure of those ten days was just a clerical formality, a logistical convenience. We didn’t actually get rid of those ten days, did we?

Or…did we?

What if something happened in the course of those ten days? Something so bad, so horrifying, so breathtakingly evil that the only way the world could survive was if those two hundred and forty hours were wiped from the face of the earth? Which, as you’ve probably guessed by now, is the conceit at the center of my new young adult novel, Lost Days — which Crazy 8 Press will be releasing on August 25, 2015.

Of course, Lost Days isn’t only about a papal decree in 1582. It’s about monsters and demons and blood and death, and magic, and courage, and crazy schemes…and even love.