Ellie and Thom escape up the Mizzourah River alone through Grave Hawker controlled Wilds to try to reach safety in the Kansas territory. Along the way, her former “bestie” Sasha and Simon "Red Boots" Eregel, the Grand Wizard of the Grave Hawkers hunt her. The Academy didn't prepare Ellie for life running up river. Good thing Thom is way more than the meat machine butler they told her he was.

At the same time, Moze makes it to Liberty-Lawrence with important intel. He joins the revolution against DesLoge Com and USNOAM's poppet-based economy. He agrees with the Free Kaw Army that Poppet trade must end even if they have to fight a war, but he wonders if they aren’t just as bad as the Grave Hawkers when he sees how poppets are treated.

Ellie and Moze hope to find each other again. They want to save the world from poppetry. Too bad three hundred miles and an army of violent Hawkers stand between them and their goals.

Poppet Cycle Books- YA DYSTOPIAN 14+

Warning: Depictions of violence, death, abuse, enslavement.

Donna J. W. Munro teaches high schoolers the slippery truths of government and history at her day job. Her students are her greatest inspiration. She lives with five cats, a fur covered husband, and an encyclopedia son. Her daughter is off saving the world.

Writing is Donna’s painful passion. Her pieces are published in Corvid Queen, Enter the Apocalypse (2017), Beautiful Lies, Painful Truths II (2018), It Calls from the Forest (2020), Pseudopod 752 (2021), Shakespeare Unleashed (2023), and many more. Check out her novels, Revelation: Poppet Cycle Book 1 and Runaway: Poppet Cycle Book 2, and her website for a complete list of works at https://www.donnajwmunro.com/.