In an alternate world, in a nameless totalitarian city, the autocratic Mayor rules the school system with an iron fist, with the help of his Educators. Fighting against the Mayor and his repressive Educators is a group of former students called the Truancy, whose goal is to take down the system by any means possible—at any cost. Against this backdrop, fifteen-year-old Tack is just trying to survive. His days are filled with sadistic teachers, unrelenting schoolwork, and indifferent parents. Things start to look up when he meets Umasi, a mysterious boy who runs a lemonade stand in an uninhabited district. Then someone close to Tack gets killed in the crossfire between the Educators and the Truants, and Tack swears vengeance. To achieve his purpose, he abandons his old life and joins the Truancy. There, he confronts Zyid, an enigmatic leader with his own plans for Tack. But Tack soon finds himself torn between his desire for vengeance and his growing sympathy for the Truants…. Isamu Fukui wrote Truancy during the summer of his fifteenth year. The author’s purpose is not just to entertain, but to make a statement about the futility of the endless cycle of violence in the world as well as the state of the educational system. And, as he put it, “I need to be in school myself if I want to write about it.”

Since her adoption, seventeen-year-old Frances has lived a quiet suburban life, but soon after she begins falling for the new boy at school, she receives a summons from her birth mother, who has just been released after serving eleven years for smothering Frances's younger sisters. Original.

This edgy novel about a diverse group of teens who commandeer a sailboat and support themselves by pirating during one summer full of adventure and discovery, is also a subtle yet powerful novel of awakening, of coming to grips individually with the issues they face as they are on the cusp of adulthood. Written with restraint and authenticity, this powerful debut will appeal to older YA readers.

The baron's headstrong daughter Pauline's rescue from Castle Cant by her heroic half-sister Lucy was just the beginning of the madcap adventure launched in The Secret of Castle Cant, K.P. Bath's acclaimed debut novel. Now hungry and homeless, they are left to fend for themselves in the war-torn Barony, which is full of danger and bounty hunters. Can the girls escape to the Outlands to fight the corrupt gum trade that claimed their father's life?