The first book in The Seventh River series, Aletheia, takes the young adult dystopian genre to new, and often dark, places. While coming highly recommended to fans of the Hunger Games, Maze Runner, and Divergent, readers will find a gut-wrenching, original plot that dares to stand apart from what is expected of the genre. Brilliant and brutal, Aletheia is praised for tearing deep emotions from even the toughest reader. Whether you enjoy post-apocalyptic, dystopian, or general science fiction, reviewers agree, Aletheia is a must read.
Nearly two decades after the fall, the transcendent city of Iris is the only place rumored to have a cure to the disease that decimated the world. Beyond Iris, are the remnants of the old world, crawling with the Depraved. Infected with Lethe, they no longer remember the people or dreams they were once willing to fight for, and are left instead with familiar voices that whisper dark and unfamiliar words within their minds. Instinct is all that keeps the diseased struggling to exist another day.
Deep underground, below Iris, exists a compound, prison to the Nameless who traded their freedom for the cure to Lethe. It is here that 736 fights to protect those she loves. Not against the Depraved that she's taught to fear, but against the society that saved her from that fate. She was willing to trade away her rights to regain the ability to form memories, but she won't let the cult that cured her treat the lives of the Nameless like a resource to be used and discarded. At least, not without a fight.
How much is 736 willing to sacrifice for revenge against her captors? For those she cares about? For freedom? Everything has a cost, what would you be willing to pay?
In the quiet desert village of Dey, living among the sand dunes and mirages, existed an anomaly - me. I was different, born without the ability to read, write or keep long memories. My scientist father hailed my uniqueness as a miracle, but my life was far from ordinary. To the village, I was just an oddity, a walking puzzle with missing pieces. My only solace was my best friend, always standing by me, his unspoken love for me etched in his affectionate gaze.
We lived under a cruel regime with a population no more than a hundred. Every year, one of us would be chosen on the Counting Day, a ceremonious banishing ritual, to become yet another outcast to the floating prison island far off in the ocean - our village's dreaded version of population control. Our past criminals, defiant to government, and more terrifyingly, our loved ones gone missing, were thought to inhabit that island, their fate, a terrifying enigma.
This year, as the Counting Day approached unrelentingly, and my loved one's life rested on borrowed time, I made a decision. I volunteered to be casted out. It was my turn to face the unknown with a hidden purpose - to locate my lost father who was sent there years ago.