Dystopian Action

Deuce’s whole world has changed. Down below, she was considered an adult. Now, topside in a town called Salvation, she’s a brat in need of training in the eyes of the townsfolk. She doesn’t fit in with the other girls: Deuce only knows how to fight. To make matters worse, her Hunter partner, Fade, keeps Deuce at a distance. Her feelings for Fade haven’t changed, but he seems not to want her around anymore. Confused and lonely, she starts looking for a way out.

If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake - whether set in the years soon after the change, or in decades far in the future.

The Hunger Games meets Matched in this high-concept thriller where citizens must prove their worth by defeating the other version of themselves - their twin. Two of you exist. Only one will survive. West Grayer is ready. She's trained for years to confront her Alternate, a twin raised by another family. Survival means a good job, marriage - life. But then a tragic misstep leaves West questioning: Is she the best version of herself, the version worthy of a future?

A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America.

Fifteen escaped and found their way to freedom, but Book, Hope, and Cat can't settle into their new life knowing the rest of the Less Thans and Sisters are still imprisoned. Now the teens must retrace their steps to save the others and thwart the Republic's dark plans to destroy those deemed different, even as relationships are tested and the path back is filled with danger.

Knox was born into one of the City's wealthiest families. A Patron, he has everything a boy could possibly want - the latest tech, the coolest clothes, and a Proxy to take all his punishments. When Knox breaks a vase, Syd is beaten. When Knox plays a practical joke, Syd is forced to haul rocks. And when Knox crashes a car, killing one of his friends, Syd is branded and sentenced to death. Syd is a Proxy. His life is not his own. Then again, neither is Knox's. Knox and Syd have more in common than either would guess.

For Grey, life was in a good place. He'd just finished his service and had settled into a job he loved. But the difference between a good place, and a great place lays in the adventure. And Grey? Grey has so much more adventure in front of him. An adventure that starts with a chance encounter with a young woman named Billie at Mrs. Butterson's Buttery Bakery and Bistro, where he worked, and they quickly bond over warm treats and cinnamon rolls. Billie has a secret, and it's more than just a love of sugary things.

In a world where deceit shaped its history, a new era of rifts dawns. Red rifts, harbingers of divine wrath, bring forth gods and monsters, challenging humanity's very existence. As anarchy rises, the remnants of humanity cling to survival, relying on the Hunters who brave these rifts to keep them at bay. Amidst the chaos, the so-called heroes maintain their rule over the fractured land, backed by the powerful Association that seeks to control the coming change. But change is inevitable, and Sloan will be at the heart of it.

A small southern town was evacuated after a freak power-plant accident. As the first anniversary of the mishap approaches, some residents are allowed to return past the national guard roadblocks. Mount Hope natives Maggie and Jordan quickly discover that their hometown is not as it was before. Downed cellular networks fail to resume service. Animals savagely attack humans. And the damaged power plant, where Jordan's father is an engineer, is under military lockdown.

In a world where animals no longer exist, twelve-year-old Kester Jaynes sometimes feels like he hardly exists either. Locked away in a home for troubled children, he's told there's something wrong with him. So when he meets a flock of talking pigeons and a bossy cockroach, Kester thinks he's finally gone crazy. But the animals have something to say. And they need him. The pigeons fly Kester to a wild place where the last creatures in the land have survived.

Weary of fighting, Lucas wants nothing more than to return to Shangri-La and the arms of Sierra. But circumstances conspire against him, and he soon finds himself embroiled in a war he wanted no part of while his loved ones are imperiled by ruthless adversaries who want them dead. The latest installment of The Day After Never series continues in the tradition of the earlier novels, with twists, reversals, and surprises aplenty.

In the near-future United States, a one-child policy is ruthlessly enforced. Everyone follows the Rule of One. But Ava Goodwin, daughter of the head of the Texas Family Planning Division, has a secret - one her mother died to keep and her father has helped to hide for her entire life. She has an identical twin sister, Mira.

Sixteen-year-old Frost understands why she's spent her entire life in an abandoned apartment building. The ruined streets below are hunting grounds for rogue robots and Eaters. She understands why she's never met a human besides her father. She even understands why he forbids her to look for medicine for her dying pet. But the thing is, it's not her real father giving the orders. It's his memories.

The Yellowstone super-volcano nearly wiped out the human race. Now, almost a year after the eruption, the survivors seem determined to finish the job. Communities wage war on each other, gangs of cannibals roam the countryside, and what little government survived the eruption has collapsed completely. The ham radio has gone silent. Sickness, cold, and starvation are the survivors' constant companions. When it becomes apparent that their home is no longer safe and adults are not facing the stark realities, Alex and Darla must create a community that can survive the ongoing disaster....

A blinding flash … then darkness. Bria Ford and her three closest friends are stranded on a country highway in the middle of a November night. No phones. No car. No lights. Helpless and hundreds of miles from home, they put their lives in the hands of handsome Jonah Page and his flinty sister, East, strangers who somehow know Bria better than she knows herself. As the group bonds to adapt to a new, yet old, way of life, the secrets of Bria’s past provide them with the means to survive the extremes of Mother Nature, and the even more frightening extremes of human nature. Quietly suspenseful, The Light explores how the stories we tell ourselves shape the person we present to the world, and what happens to that person when the world falls away.

Robin is pleased to hear from his old school friend Alan Adele, not least because Alan's father is Guy Gisborne's top henchman. Now that Gisborne is in the running to be elected Sheriff of Nottingham, he needs to keep his criminal activities under wraps. So when Alan tips off Robin and the rebels at Sherwood Castle that Gisborne's waste disposal business is costing its workers lives, the stakes become very high. Robin is soon literally digging the dirt on his arch enemy to finally bring him down in this latest high-octane adventure.

What would you do if every spark of electricity suddenly vanished, as if somebody had flipped a switch on the entire planet? Cars won't start, the heat shuts off, there's no water in your faucet, and your radio, TV, and flashlight go dark. Everyone in Charlie's small town is baffled. But as time passes, lawlessness erupts and takes an ugly turn. When the market and pharmacy are torched by an anti-Semitic arsonist, Charlie realizes his mother will die without her medicine.

Welcome to the tyrannical city of Jewel, where impatience is a sin and boldness is a crime. Goldie Roth has lived in Jewel all her life. Like every child in the city, she wears a silver guardchain and is forced to obey the dreaded Blessed Guardians. She has never done anything by herself and won’t be allowed out on the streets unchained until Separation Day.

Ara, Kaden, and Sam must uncover the secrets of The Last City if they have any hope of getting out of this apocalypse alive.

By the time the classified report is leaked to the public, it’s already too late. A horrifying pandemic has begun to spread, with ferocious speed, from Paris to the rest of Europe. The infected masses die quickly . . . but they don’t remain dead for long. As military forces are overpowered by the horde of undead, civilization as we know it is pushed to the breaking point. Those who remain uninfected rush the ports, hoping to escape the bloodthirsty beasts, desperate for some safe harbor.