Keep together. Keep your eyes open. Keep your wits about you.

The desert is unkind in the best of times. And the decade since the Civil War has been anything but the best of times for Daisy Wilcox -- call her Willie -- and her family. This tense, heart-pounding alternate history about a young woman fighting to survive the unthinkable will keep fans of Westworld and The Walking Dead reading late into the night.

A horrifying sickness has spread across the West Texas desert. Infected people -- shakes -- attack the living, and the surviving towns are only as safe as their perimeter walls are strong. The state is all but quarantined from the rest of the country. Glory, Texas, is a near ghost town. Still, seventeen-year-old Willie has managed to keep her siblings safe, even after the sickness took their mother. But then her good-for-nothing father steals a fortune from one of the most merciless shake hunters in town, and Willie is left on the hook for his debt. With two young hunters as guides, Willie sets out across the desert to find her father. And the desert holds more dangers than just shakes.

This riveting debut novel blends True Grit with 28 Days Later for an unforgettable journey.

But to survive the journey, will Willie have to become as merciless as the monsters she's running from?

• Gritty Western Horror: In a quarantined 1877 Texas, the infected -- known as shakes -- are as deadly as the desert itself, and only the hardest survive.

• Strong Female Protagonist: Raised on the belief that you have to be harder than the world around you, Willie will risk everything to protect her younger siblings from a debt that isn't theirs.

• A High-Stakes Hunt: Willie isn't hunting shakes. She's hunting her own father to settle a score with a merciless bounty hunter who won't take no for an answer.

• Found Family Tropes: Forced to rely on two young hunters for guides, Willie must learn who to trust when every alliance is a gamble for her life.

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• Teen & Young AdultLiterature & FictionSocial & Family IssuesFamilySiblings
• Teen & Young AdultScience Fiction & FantasyFantasyAlternative History
• Teen & Young AdultHistorical FictionUnited States19th Century

• Publication Date: April 10, 2018
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 482 Pages
• File Size: 13 KB