Wasteland

Fans of the Divergent and Hunger Games series will love Wasteland, the first installment of the Wasteland trilogy, by five-time Emmy Award-nominated writer Susan Kim and Edgar Award-winning Laurence Klavan. With heart-pounding thrills, this harrowing survival story is alive with action and intrigue. Welcome to the Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic U.S. where no one lives past the age of 19. But an early death isn't the only doom waiting around the corner: Everyone is forced to live under the looming threat of rampant disease and brutal attacks by the variants-hermaphroditic outcasts that live on the outskirts of Prin. Esther doesn't care that her best friend, a variant, is considered 'the enemy.' She doesn't care that Levi, who controls the Source, is the real enemy and might send his Taser boys after her if she makes one wrong move. Then she meets Caleb, and just possibly, she might have a chance at salvation.

Old enemies have become new allies. But, at what cost? Trea wasn't expecting there would be more, of her kind: additional Antaeans, the High Rulers didn't know about. But where, did they, come from? As Trea tries to settle into her new surroundings, violence erupts around her. A new threat is, discovered, one that could not only destroy her new home, but those, she has grown to care about. Should Trea stay out of the war and let events unfold, or does she, need to become the Antaean she was, designed to be?

Meg has spent the last twelve years of her life living in the Wasteland with a protector who has kept her in the dark about her origins, and trained her to be a fighter and weapons expert. What Meg doesn't know is that she is an Antaean: a super soldier engineered to protect the country of Sirain from its enemies, then hidden away from the very cities that sacrificed many of their own people to design her. It isn't, until an attack by a group of unidentified soldiers leaves her permanently scarred, and her protector dead that she begins to learn the truth about herself. Trying to survive in a world of strangers, Meg discovers there are more like her: other Antaeans who've been, hidden from their enemies. Forced from the Wasteland by the loss of her protector, Meg realized she must try to locate the other Antaeans, before Sirain's enemies do, or worse, the cities' leaders, can discover and destroy them all.

The Emmy Award nominee and Edgar Award-winning duo return readers to the postapocalyptic teen world, the Wasteland, in this thrilling sequel. Bestselling author of Criminal, Karen Slaughter, called Wasteland "a Lord of the Flies for future generations. An irresistible page-turner. "The former citizens of Prin are running out of time. The Source has been destroyed, so food is scarcer than ever. Tensions are rising... and then an earthquake hits. With heart-pounding adventure and suspense, the stakes are even higher for Esther, Caleb, and the rest of their clan. They're pinning all their hopes on the road... but what if it's the most dangerous place of all?

What if the fight for survival isn't worth the cost? The collective isn't the safe haven Alessandro had hoped it would be. Many of the members suspect he'd sell them out in an instant for his own benefit, and the threat of more assaults coupled with the dwindling food supply have left them with no other choice than to search for a more defensible location. Valeria is doing her best to grapple with her losses and adjust to her new reality, but when the collective's leaders reveal the location of a secret underground agricultural facility and announce plans to move there, she fears they're putting too much stock in the hope that the facility will be their salvation. Yet if everyone is to survive, they'll need the facility's technology to grow their own food. The perilous journey turns out to be the least of their worries. After a devastating betrayal, can the collective find the will to stay together or will they too dissolve, pitting member against member in a deadly battle for existence?

Time has become the collective's scarcest resource. Holed up in a location they can't hope to defend, and with precious few supplies, their very survival hinges on finding a defensible place to settle, somewhere they can risk using their limited store of seeds to grow more food. Valeria pounces on the chance to join one of the scouting teams tasked with finding a new home. Reeling from the aftermath of her parents' actions and searching for answers, she's desperate to get out into the wasteland and discover who and what else is out there. Afraid the collective's recent upheaval will call his position into question once more, Alessandro is doing his best to blend in. But when the scouting teams begin bringing back information into which he alone can provide insight, information that may hold the key to finding a secure location for the collective, he has no choice but to draw attention to himself. When a marauding group begins closing in on their borders, the collective is forced to reckon with losing their one and only edge. Whatever the cost, they must move before they're truly prepared or risk annihilation.

War between Eretria and Sirain is inevitable. Trea's betrayal has been felt by all those who fought with her, but none more so than by Braxton. Now separated from Sirain and Trea, Braxton must choose where his loyalties truly lie. Will he fight for Eretria, a country he hardly knows, or risk sacrificing Eretria's survival by focusing his energy on savie Trea? With a new Antaean army being trained by his most powerful Antaean Andred-a now brainwashed Trea-Premier Vladim is confident his victory will be quick. But there are forces at work against him. Ones that could cause the war of the century to collapse before it's begun.

The Emmy Award-nominated and Edgar Award-winning duo of Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan deliver a heart-pounding finale to the post-apocalyptic teen world of the Wasteland, filled with dramatic twists and turns. No one dares to leave the District-the towering structure of glass and steel that is their protection against the unruly bands of Outsiders that roam Mundreel and the deadly rain that carries the disease that kills everyone over the age of nineteen. This skyscraper stands amid the urban devastation, the city rumored to have once been called "Montreal." Esther and her allies have created a haven on the rooftop, a garden that flourishes, and a home for her new baby, hidden from all but the very few who know her secret. But as Gideon's power grows and factions form, the ultimate darkness is born from greed, and Esther must find a way to save the citizens from themselves.