From debut author Nina Varela comes the first book in a richly imagined epic fantasy duology about an impossible love between two girls—one human, one Made—whose romance could be the beginning of a revolution. Perfect for fans of Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Curse as well as Game of Thrones and Westworld. After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will. Now Ayla, a human servant rising in the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging her family’s death…by killing the sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier was Made to be beautiful, flawless, and to carry on her father’s legacy. But that was before her betrothal to the enigmatic Scyre Kinok, before she discovered her father isn’t the benevolent king she once admired, and most importantly, before she met Ayla. Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war.

The year is 2020 and a virulent new disease has decimated the global population. Witnesses report wild cries and bite attacks from the infected, with an apparent resistance to pain that leads many to believe the zombie apocalypse is at hand. Several months after the first outbreak the undead criers have destroyed everything that went before, with few survivors hidden in the shadows here and there. Jack is one of them, and with his only goal to stay alive he seeks out what remains of the living and safe territory where the man-eating criers can’t follow. Over the course of the following days he meets both friend and foe, slowly coming to realize how the world has changed and what it takes to stay alive.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.