Borderline (Arcadia Project Trilogy #1) by Mishell Baker

Millie doesn't have much of her inheritance money left and with few prospects, life is a little bleak.  A year ago, Mille was a student at UCLA having made her directorial debut and things were great but now, after trying to commit suicide by jumping off a seven story building, Millie is a double amputee and is struggling to deal with her borderline personality disorder.

When Millie is offered a job with the Arcadia project, though she is skeptical, she jumps at the chance to get out of the hospital and possibly rebuild her life.  What she doesn't realise is that it's going to introduce her to world that she had no idea existed.  Hollywood has always been a magical please to many but what people don't realise is that the magic isn't an illusion, it just comes from a different world.

All artists are talented because they either have a muse or are warlocks.  The greatest films, books or paintings could not have been created without the help of a fae muse.  This puts a new spin on how the media works.  Having adopted the human customs of ranks, only those who are considered royalty are allowed to travel to earth.  This means that every step of creation whether mystical or human, there is a gatekeeper in place.

I must admit that I was attracted to Boderline because of the fact that the protagonist is disabled. Disability is often erased in urban fantasy and when it does appear, more often than not, the character is either a side character or disabled in name only.  I am happy to report this is very much not the case with Borderline.  Millie's BPD affects every facet of her life and she is often forced to come up with coping mechanisms to deal with everyday situations.

"One of the fun bits about BPD is a phenomenon shrinks like to call “splitting.” When under stress, Borderlines forget the existence of gray. Life is a beautiful miracle, or a cesspool of despair. The film you’re making is a Best Picture candidate, or it’s garbage. People are either saints, or they’re scheming to destroy you."

Due to the conditions of her residency, Millie is forced to do without her medications and deals with it by talking herself down from extreme situations and employing the tools that she learned in therapy. This doesn't mean that she can always control it, as evidenced when she beat Teo with her cane for rejecting her sexual advances but it does mean at times she actively puts her "rational brain" in control, aware that she is not perceiving the situation correctly.