Books

The Vault of Dreamers

VaultCoverFinalThe Forge School is the most prestigious arts school in the country. The secret to its success: every moment of the students’ lives is televised as part of the wildly popular Forge Show, and the students’ schedules include twelve hours of induced sleep meant to enhance creativity. But when first year film student Rosie Sinclair skips her sleeping pill, she discovers there is something off about Forge. In fact, she suspects that there are sinister things going on deep below the reaches of the cameras. What’s worse, she starts to notice that the edges of her consciousness do not feel quite right. And soon, she unearths the ghastly secret that the Forge School is hiding—and what it truly means to dream there.

From the author of the Birthmarked trilogy comes a fast-paced, psychologically thrilling novel about what happens when your dreams are not your own. 

The Rule of Mirrors (The Vault of Dreamers #2)

RuleofMirrorsCoverThe thrilling sequel to The Vault of Dreamers follows Rosie after her consciousness has been split in two.

The entire country was watching when Rosie Sinclair was expelled from Forge, the prestigious arts school that doubles as a reality TV show. But few know how Dean Berg was mining students’ dreams in laboratories deep below the school. And no one, least of all the Dean himself, knows that when Rosie’s dreams were seeded into the mind of another patient, Rosie’s consciousness woke up in that body–a girl far from Forge, a girl with a completely different life from Rosie, a girl who is pregnant.

Told from alternating points of view between Rosie as she makes sense of her new identity and the shattered subconscious that still exists in her old body, The Rule of Mirrors is a fascinating tale of reflections. 

The Keep of Ages (The Vault of Dreamers #3)

The Grisly Valley horror park has been deserted since a nearby nuclear meltdown doomed it to a contamination zone. But Rosie Sinclair is headed to Grisly anyway, following an elusive trail to rescue her kidnapped family. As she crosses the country, she dreads that Dean Berg is once again manipulating her every move to increase her fear, priming her for a final, lethal dream mining procedure.

In her struggles to outmaneuver Berg, Rosie can’t ignore the growing restlessness in the back of her mind. The turmoil she feels is more than worry over the camera in Linus’s eye, or Thea’s fragile health, or Burnham’s unnerving generosity. Faced with unspeakable suffering and otherworldly beauty, Rosie must discover how to trust her mind, her friends, and reality itself.

The final installment of the Vault of Dreamers trilogy is propulsive and deeply speculative, exploring profound relationships and stirring possibilities for what it means to be alive.

The Birthmarked Trilogy

Birthmarked (Book One)

BirthmarkedPBforBlogAfter climate change, on the north shore of Unlake Superior, a dystopian world is divided between those who live inside the wall, and those, like sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone, who live outside. It’s Gaia’s job to “advance” a quota of infants from poverty into the walled Enclave, until the night one agonized mother objects, and Gaia’s parents disappear.

As Gaia’s efforts to save her parents take her within the wall, she faces the brutal injustice of the Enclave and discovers she alone holds the key to a secret code, a code of “birthmarked” babies and genetic merit.

Fraught with difficult moral choices and rich with intricate layers of codes, Birthmarked explores a colorful, cruel, eerily familiar world where a criminal is defined by her genes, and one girl can make all the difference.

Prized (Birthmarked Book Two)

PrizedCoverIn the thrilling follow up to Birthmarked, sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone has fled from the Enclave and now must fight for her baby sister’s survival in the matriarchal society of Sylum.

Striking out into the wasteland with nothing but her baby sister, a handful of supplies, and a rumor to guide her, sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone survives only to be captured by the people of Sylum, a dystopian society where women rule the men who drastically outnumber them, and a kiss is a crime. In order to see her sister again, Gaia must submit to their strict social code and the oppressive rules of Matrarc Olivia. Meanwhile, two brothers claim her aid in attempting to spring the environmental trap that keeps the people of Sylum captive, and suddenly Gaia must contend with the exciting, uncomfortable, and altogether new feeling of being desirable.

When someone from Gaia’s past shows up, she discovers that survival alone is not enough, and that justice requires sacrifice.

Promised (Birthmarked Book Three)

PromisedCoverHighrezAfter defying the ruthless Enclave, surviving the wasteland, and overthrowing Sylum, Gaia Stone now faces her greatest challenge yet—to lead the people of Sylum back to the Enclave and persuade the Protectorat to grant them refuge. But in Gaia’s absence, the Enclave has become even more ruthless, picking girls from outside the wall to serve in an experimental baby factory. Babies with the right genes are now a priceless commodity with the potential to reshape life inside the wall and redefine humanity. The key to it all comes back to one fearless, young midwife. When negotiations devolve into terrorist threats, Gaia finds herself at the crux of an insupportable decision.

As a leader, a woman, and an idealist in love, Gaia must decide if she can sacrifice what—or whom—she values most.

 

 

The Birthmarked Stories

“Tortured”Tortured+RuledCoversSmall (Birthmarked 1.5) and “Ruled” (Birthmarked 2.5) take place in the gaps between novels, and are told from Leon’s perspective. Additional tie-in stories of characters at younger ages occasionally appear on this site.

 

 

Ari & Milo ~ A Serial Novel

She lives in the clouds. He lives for the mines. They’re never supposed to meet. But they do.

In a world where the super-rich literally live in the clouds, golden girl Ari Chaput aims to find a cure for the disease that’s killing her mother. At the opposite extreme, Milo Colbix works in the mines, digging vercury out of the darkness in an effort to honor his dead father. When fate brings them together, they discover that love is not simple or easy. If they want to be together, they’ll risk upending their families and their lives.

With a nod to Shakespeare and a bead on the future, Ari & Milo is the perfect meld of sci-fi, romance and YA. Now exclusively on WattpadAri & Milo is unfolding as a serial with daily installments M-F, starting on June 8, 2021 until it is complete.