The Clock That Tick Tocked

Some clocks tick forward. This one remembers backward. Fourteen-year-old Eli Grant doesn't believe in haunted heirlooms or secret auctions selling memory-bound relics. He's just trying to survive another shift at his family's struggling auction house without disappointing his older sister, Ivy, or provoking their formidable grandfather, Henry Grant—a legendary auctioneer who's been more shadow than man since Eli's mother vanished years ago. But when Lot 27—a strange children's clock with a drooping hand and a faint Spiral carved into its base—gets sold to a bidder who doesn't blink, something inside Eli begins to fracture. His sketches start changing on their own. Time hiccups. Memories twitch. And the spirals that keep appearing in his drawings don't feel like symbols. They feel like echoes. Then he finds the invitation. Hidden in his sketchbook, printed in black Spiral ink, the card is unmarked. Undeniable. And it pulls him into a world he was never meant to see: the Shadow Auction, an underground market where relics infused with memory and emotion are traded between masked collectors, Spiralbound operatives, and forbidden factions with names like Vaultborn and Society. In the middle of it all is Seraphine, a too-charming, too-calm relic hunter who knows far too much about Eli's family—and seems determined to win the very clock he can't stop sketching. As Eli follows the Spiral deeper into forgotten vaults, back-room bids, and relics that seem to recognize him, he uncovers more than just a family secret. He discovers the Spiral is alive. It hums beneath the skin of old clocks. It warps time around certain objects. And it remembers people. Especially the ones who try to forget. Now hunted by masked collectors, haunted by visions of a woman he can't remember, and pulled between truth and time, Eli must decide who to trust—and whether to follow the Spiral deeper or run before it winds him too tight to escape. But the Spiral doesn't choose you because you're ready. It chooses you because you're fractured. THE CLOCK THAT TICK-TOCKED is Book One in the Shadow Auction Series, a cinematic, fast-paced, emotionally rich YA fantasy-thriller saga filled with forbidden relics, fractured timelines, identity twists, and supernatural secrets waiting to surface. Perfect for fans of Stranger Things, The Maze Runner, The Night Circus, and Lockwood & Co., this is a darkly magical, memory-driven adventure where every object holds a story—and some stories won't stay buried. ? Follow Eli Grant into a world where clocks don't tell time—they rewrite it.