The Contest


K.E. Ganshert - 2021
    A prince with everything. Only one can win.In a world of haves and have nots, where petty crime is punishable by death and magic is forbidden, a deadly contest unfolds in secret. Twelve competitors are mysteriously invited. The winner gets one wish. For 17-year-old Briar Bishop, this means saving her brother from execution by guillotine, and she’s not going to let anything or anyone get in her way. Especially not Leo Davenbrook, the handsome High Prince, who has grown up with everything she never had and whose very presence threatens her chance at survival. She has no idea a darker battle wages in secret, one that could lead to a fate far worse than the death of her brother.

Girls with Sharp Sticks


Suzanne Young - 2019
    The Girls of Innovations Academy are beautiful and well-behaved—it says so on their report cards. Under the watchful gaze of their Guardian, they receive a well-rounded education that promises to make them better. Obedient girls, free from arrogance or defiance. Free from troublesome opinions or individual interests. But the girls’ carefully controlled existence may not be quite as it appears. As Mena and her friends uncover the dark secrets of what’s actually happening there—and who they really are—the girls of Innovations Academy will learn to fight back. Bringing the trademark plot twists and high-octane drama that made The Program a bestselling and award-winning series, Suzanne Young launches a new series that confronts some of today’s most pressing ethical questions.

Brave New Girl


Rachel Vincent - 2017
    Brown eyes. Fair skin. We are healthy and strong and smart. But only one of us has ever had a secret.Dahlia 16 sees her face in every crowd. She’s nothing special—just one of five thousand girls created from a single genome to work for the greater good of the city.Meeting Trigger 17 changes everything. He thinks she’s interesting. Beautiful. Unique. Which means he must be flawed. When Dahlia can’t stop thinking about him—when she can't resist looking for him, even though that means breaking the rules—she realizes she’s flawed, too. But if she’s flawed, then so are all her identicals. And any genome found to be flawed will be recalled.Destroyed.Getting caught with Trigger would seal not only Dahlia’s fate, but that of all five thousand girls who share her face. But what if Trigger is right? What if Dahlia is different?Suddenly the girl who always follows the rules is breaking them, one by one by one…

Hush


Dylan Farrow - 2020
    Who will break the hush? Seventeen-year-old Shae has led a seemingly quiet life, joking with her best friend Fiona, and chatting with Mads, the neighborhood boy who always knows how to make her smile. All while secretly keeping her fears at bay… Of the disease that took her brother’s life. Of how her dreams seem to bleed into reality around her. Of a group of justice seekers called the Bards who claim to use the magic of Telling to keep her community safe.When her mother is murdered, she can no longer pretend.Not knowing who to trust, Shae journeys to unlock the truth, instead finding a new enemy keen to destroy her, a brooding boy with dark secrets, and an untold power she never thought possible.

The Herland Trilogy: Moving the Mountain, Herland, with Her in Ourland


Charlotte Perkins Gilman - 1999
    The second book in the trilogy is her landmark classic Herland. Moving the Mountain delivers Gilman's program for reforming society. She concentrates on measures of rationality and efficiency that could be instituted in her own time, largely with greater social cooperation—equal education and treatment for girls and boys, day-care centers for working women, and other issues still relevant a century later. Yet Gilman also allows for technological progress: electric power is the motive force in industry and urban society, power generated largely by the tides, wind-mills, water mills, and solar engines.Herland is a utopian novel written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis. The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination. The story is told from the perspective of Van Jennings, a student of sociology who, along with two friends, Terry O. Nicholson and Jeff Margrave, forms an expedition party to explore an area of uncharted land where it is rumored lives a society consisting entirely of women. The three friends do not really believe the rumors as they are unable to conceive of how human reproduction could occur without males. The men speculate about what a society of women would be like, each guessing differently based on the stereotype of women which he holds most dear.With Her in Ourland is the third book in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's utopian trilogy which begins where Moving the Mountain and Herland left off. Gilman masterfully compares our real modern male-dominated world with an imaginary perfect society comprised of only woman. Gilman was a well known and deeply respected sociologist and this trilogy holds an important place in feminist fiction.

Ink


Alice Broadway - 2017
    There are honorable marks that let people know you're trustworthy. And shameful tattoos that announce you as a traitor. After her father dies, Leora finds solace in the fact that his skin tells a wonderful story. That is, until she glimpses a mark on the back of his neck...the symbol of the worst crime a person can commit in Saintstone. Leora knows it has to be a mistake, but before she can do anything about it, the horrifying secret gets out, jeopardizing her father's legacy...and Leora's life.In her startlingly prescient debut, Alice Broadway shines a light on the dangerous lengths we go to make our world feel orderly--even when the truth refuses to stay within the lines. This rich, lyrical fantasy with echoes of Orwell is unlike anything you've ever read, a tale guaranteed to get under your skin...

The New Hunger


Isaac Marion - 2013
    Then came a final blow no one could have expected: all the world’s corpses rising up to make more.Born into this bleak and bloody landscape, twelve-year-old Julie struggles to hold on to hope as she and her parents drive across the wastelands of America, a nightmarish road trip in search of a new home.Hungry, lost, and scared, sixteen-year-old Nora finds herself her brother’s sole guardian after her parents abandon them in the not-quite-empty ruins of Seattle.And in the darkness of a forest, a dead man opens his eyes. Who is he? What is he? With no clues beyond a red tie and the letter “R,” he must unravel the grim mystery of his existence—right after he learns how to think, how to walk, and how to satisfy the monster howling in his belly. The New Hunger is a glimpse of the past and a path to an astonishing future…

Body of Stars


Laura Maylene WalterLaura Maylene Walter - 2021
    A piercing indictment of rape culture, a read about what happens when women are objectified and stripped of choice--and what happens when they fight back.Celeste Morton has eagerly awaited her passage to adulthood. Like every girl, she was born with a set of childhood markings--the freckles, moles, and birthmarks on her body that foretell her future and that of those around her--and with puberty will come a new set of predictions that will solidify her fate. The possibilities are tantalizing enough to outweigh the worry that the future she dreams of won't be the one she's fated to have and the fear of her "changeling period" the time when women are nearly irresistible to men and the risk of abduction is rife.Celeste's beloved brother, Miles, is equally anticipating her transition to adulthood. As a skilled interpreter of the future, a field that typically excludes men, Miles considers Celeste his practice ground--and the only clue to what his own future will bring. But when Celeste changes, she learns a devastating secret about Miles's fate: a secret that could destroy her family, a secret she will do anything to keep. Yet Celeste isn't the only one keeping secrets, and when the lies of brother and sister collide, it leads to a tragedy that will irrevocably change Celeste's fate, set her on a path to fight against the inherent misogyny of fortune-telling, and urge her to create a future that is truly her own.

Seed to Harvest


Octavia E. Butler - 1976
    Butler established themes of identity and transformation that echo throughout her distinguished career. Now collected for the first time in one volume, these four novels take readers on a wondrous odyssey from a mythic, prim/ordial past to a fantastic far future.In ancient Africa, a female demigod of nurture and fertility mates with a powerful, destructive male entity. Together they birth a race of madmen, visionaries, and psychics who cling to civilization's margins and back alleys for millenia, coming together in a telepathic Pattern just as Earth is consumed by a cosmic invasion. Now these new beings--no longer mearly human--will battle to rule the transfigured world.

After the Cure


Deirdre Gould - 2013
    The Infected were driven mad by the disease, becoming violent and cannibalistic, killing even those closest to them without hesitation. Six years ago, the tiny surviving community of Immune humans found a cure, and the Infected began to wake up and realize what they'd done. And what had been done to them. Over time, society began to rebuild itself. Now it is ready to judge those responsible for the Plague. Nella Rider, the court psychologist and Frank Courtlen a defense attorney are trying to establish the truth. But more depends on it than they know. They race to find the answers they need before the fragile remains of humanity vanish for good. The After the Cure Series: Book 1: After the Cure Book 2: The Cured Book 3: Krisis Book 4: Poveglia releases July 21, 2015 Book 5: The 40th Day coming Fall 2015

The Farm


Joanne Ramos - 2019
    In fact, you get paid big money—more than you've ever dreamed of—to spend a few seasons in this luxurious locale. The catch? For nine months, you belong to the Farm. You cannot leave the grounds; your every move is monitored. Your former life will seem a world away as you dedicate yourself to the all-consuming task of producing the perfect baby for your überwealthy clients.Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines and a struggling single mother, is thrilled to make it through the highly competitive Host selection process at the Farm. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her own young daughter's well-being, Jane grows desperate to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she'll receive on delivery—or worse.Heartbreaking, suspenseful, provocative, The Farm pushes our thinking on motherhood, money, and merit to the extremes, and raises crucial questions about the trade-offs women will make to fortify their futures and the futures of those they love.

The Dream of Perpetual Motion


Dexter Palmer - 2010
    His only companions are the disembodied voice of Miranda Taligent, the only woman he has ever loved, and the cryogenically frozen body of her father Prospero, the genius and industrial magnate who drove her insane.The tale of Harold’s life is also one of an alternate reality, a lucid waking dream in which the well-heeled have mechanical men for servants, where the realms of fairy tales can be built from scratch, where replicas of deserted islands exist within skyscrapers.. As Harold’s childhood infatuation with Miranda changes over twenty years to love and then to obsession, the visionary inventions of her father also change Harold’s entire world, transforming it from a place of music and miracles to one of machines and noise. And as Harold heads toward a last desperate confrontation with Prospero to save Miranda’s life, he finds himself an unwitting participant in the creation of the greatest invention of them all: the perpetual motion machine.Beautifully written, stunningly imagined, and wickedly funny, The Dream of Perpetual Motion is a heartfelt meditation on the place of love in a world dominated by technology.

Justice Buried


Hilary Thompson - 2014
    Now the community of Asphodel is trapped underground, waiting for the prophesied maiden of Justice to rescue them.Sixteen-year-old Astrea is supposed to be this savior - too bad for them she isn't a believer. Astrea fights her fate until discovering a power she never knew she had, and a handsome ally she never expected. With her life in danger, Astrea must choose between saving her city or herself.This thrilling young adult adventure is the first in the richly-imagined Starbright series, which is laced with mystery, mythology, romance, and magic. Justice Buried will have you questioning fate versus free will along with Astrea's strong female lead, and wondering who can be trusted when everyone is keeping secrets.

A Brother's Price


Wen Spencer - 2005
    Jerin Whistler has come of age for marriage and his handsome features have come to the attention of the royal princesses. But such attentions can be dangerous-especially as Jerin uncovers the dark mysteries the royal family is hiding.

The Pale Dreamer


Samantha Shannon - 2016
    Here, the clairvoyant underworld plays by its own rules, and rival gangs will stop at nothing to win such a magnificent prize.Sixteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working for Jaxon Hall, the most notorious mime-lord in the city. He thinks she is hiding a powerful gift, but it refuses to surface. Maybe this is the opportunity she needs to secure her position in his gang, the Seven Seals…