Perfect Ruin (The Internment Chronicles)
Lauren DeStefano
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 1442480637
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Chemical Garden trilogy: On the floating city of Internment, you can be anything you dream. Unless you approach the edge. Children’s Literature says “shades of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 inspire DeStefano’s sci-fi/murder mystery page-turner.”
Morgan Stockhour knows getting too close to the edge of Internment, the floating city and her home, can lead to madness. Even though her older brother, Lex, was a Jumper, Morgan vows never to end up like him. There’s too much for her on Internment: her parents, best friend Pen, and her betrothed, Basil. Her life is ordinary and safe, even if she sometimes does wonder about the ground and why it’s forbidden.
Then a murder, the first in a generation, rocks the city. With whispers swirling and fear on the wind, Morgan can no longer stop herself from investigating, especially once she meets Judas. Betrothed to the victim, Judas is being blamed for the murder, but Morgan is convinced of his innocence. Secrets lay at the heart of Internment, but nothing can prepare Morgan for what she will find—or whom she will lose.
Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula (Cassidy Jones Adventures, Book 1)
The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds, Book 1)
Births never need to happen. It would frighten me to share a face with someone else, but that’s one of Pen’s favorite chapters in the history book. She says it’s poetic that one soul could bear so much sadness that it tries again and again to come into the world as someone else. Lex and Alice aren’t speaking. Alice swore to me she wasn’t angry, but she’s slamming the cabinets as she puts things away. Down the hall, my brother is talking to his transcriber and he has just knocked something over.
What’s to be done when the affliction is the remedy itself? Tonic is a peculiar medication I will never understand. I’ve asked Lex and he says it makes conmen of anyone it affects. I suppose he’s right. I am inconspicuous when I check for the scent of it on her clothes and on her breath on the days when she’s especially morose. She doesn’t see that I peek into her satchel on the train. And when she brings tonic into the cavern, I don’t fight her. I come along, entertaining her jokes to keep her.
“What is it?” I say. “Unpredictable. Mostly good, but awful sometimes. The screens are going to turn on in a few minutes, and King Furlow is going to talk about the incident on the train tracks. It’s going to be an honest account. I know you’ve read about other incidents in your textbooks, but this will be more upsetting. I think you should come watch, but I’m leaving it up to you.” I don’t even have to deliberate. “I want to go,” I say, throwing back the covers, reaching for my robe hanging.
Anger. “Why kill anyone if he’s just going to destroy the machine?” “So you admit it.” She’s smiling, her teeth perfect and white. “There really is a machine that could bring us to the ground safely.” “I didn’t say that.” “There is. You’ve seen it. You know.” Her eyes brighten, but there’s nothing maniacal or cruel in them. Worse, there’s hope. 25 There’s majesty in the ability to create. Look at an artist’s hands—sullied by colors. Powerful and strange. —“Intangible Gods,” Daphne.
Away. “You can let us out now,” I say. Pen dabs at Thomas’s face with a wet cloth. She presses it to either side of his neck, under his chin. It’s just the three of us in the bunk room. The others are trying to make themselves useful in the Nucleus. Judas is keeping watch over Princess Celeste away from the others; with all the grace of her lineage, she allowed herself to be searched. She allowed me to remove my knife from her hand, and the tranquilizer darts from her belt and from the rims of.