This series must be read in order. This is the first book. I can't wait to read A City Called Smoke!



Squid only has one possession in the world that means anything. It is a key that was his mother's. He has no idea why it is important... Just that it IS. Something inside of him tells him he MUST NOT lose it. Or let anyone take it. He MUST protect it! No matter the cost. Living with his cruel Aunt and Uncle on their dirt farm is not much of a life, but it is all that he has ever known. Other than school, which he loved, dirt farming is, sadly, his life. Why did they pull him out of school? Will he ever be able to go back? Could there be anything out there better for him? Or will he spend his whole life in hard labor and drudgery, just surviving the abuse of his relatives and the back breaking work?



Lynn has always wanted to be a Digger and serve the Territory as a soldier taking out ghouls and keeping everyone safe. Just like her General father. Too bad she is a girl. They are not allowed to be Diggers, only men. Will she ever find a way to live out her dream of becoming a Digger? Are there really Ghouls inside the Territory? Can her father survive standing up to the Administrator? What will become of her of something happens to him?



Set in an Apocalyptic world that has truly fallen in a prior Apocalypse and never recovered, this series paints a vivid and disturbing picture of a world where life is just survival and waiting for the next disaster for all but the citizens of one city, Alice, and then only the privileged few that live within the walls.



***This series is suitable for mature young adult through adult readers who enjoy apocalyptic fiction filled with horror, action, adventure, mystery and intrigue set in a world truly dystopian :)