_______ _ _ _ _ What if your deja vu was really flashes of a life running parallel to your own? _ _ _ _____ An imaginative child, Janey left childhood far behind as soon as older children and adults began to tease her for it, much to the disappointment of her younger brother. On her thirtieth birthday, the first Pulse hits and drives them to seek shelter at his favorite hangout - a one-of-a-kind indoor playland for grown-ups called the Imaginarium. When the place is attacked by urban looters, she becomes an unwilling 'defender of imagination.' Raised within the confines of Tanglewood, a workshop-residence formed from the awakening of a grove of silver birch, Ozanne fled her family's unrelenting expectations for a life of frivolity and vanity at Court. Upon the passing of a Wave that obstructs all but personal Glamour, she races back with her brother to protect it from the Foe, though certain she has little to offer. Why then does he persist in looking to her to protect them? _____ _ _ _ DEFENSE MECHANISMS is a contemporary fairy tale of finding realistic, modern-day happy endings when the ways we learn to protect ourselves from other people's emotional sore spots, like ignorance and hate, keep us from being who we really are and finding our place in life. ___________ _ _ _ _