After intentionally getting himself expelled from Realm One, Linus Hoppe believed he would experience more of real life. But life in inferior Realm Two is a nightmare. For months Linus has been imprisoned in a factory, where he toils on an assembly line. At night, he’s so tired that he no longer dreams of a future, of the destiny he wanted to create for himself. As for his family and friends, he fears he’ll never see them again. He especially misses Chem and Yosh, his co-conspirators in fooling the Great Processor. What made them think they could change society’s rigid hierarchy? Ready to give up, Linus must somehow regain hope and the will to fight for his freedom.

Linus Hoppe has always lived in Realm One, an ideal world. Now, at 14, he must be tested by the Great Processor to determine where he deserves to live from here on. If he achieves a high score, nothing in his life will change. But if he scores too low, he’ll be relegated to an inferior realm, possibly far from his family and friends. There’s really nothing for Linus to worry about—unless, of course, he chooses to alter his destiny.

After their parents are killed in a car accident, sisters Mado, fifteen, and Patty, twenty, try to cope, but when the irresponsible and impulsive Patty gets pregnant and expects Mado to take charge of everything, life becomes increasingly difficult.

LIKE ALL THE RATS in his tribe, Vasco loves nothing more than to scurry around the harbor in search of discarded fish. But one day he discovers that the members of his tribe have died under mysterious circumstances. Now Vasco is alone . . . until he reluctantly joins some fearsome rats who live deep in the sewers. Among them, he makes some loyal friends and some daunting enemies. And, as he begins to understand that humans are masterminding the extinction of all the rats in the city, Vasco sees only one solution: to flee aboard a ship. Courageous, humble, and determined, Vasco does his best to guide his exiled companions to a faraway land where they can live peacefully. But in struggling to establish a new tribe, and to find a place they can call home, Vasco must endure countless dangers and rise to many challenges.

In the early 1990s, a boy with a mysterious past and the woman who cares for him endure a journey across the war-torn Caucasus and Europe, encountering other refugees searching for a better life.

On the afternoon when Angel Allegria arrives at the Poloverdos’ farmhouse, he kills the farmer and his wife. But he spares their child, Paolo–a young boy who will claim this as the day on which he was born. Together the killer and the boy begin a new life on this remote and rugged stretch of land in Chile. Then Luis Secunda, a well-to-do and educated fellow from the city descends upon them. Paolo is caught in the paternal rivalry between the two men. But life resumes its course . . . until circumstances force the three to leave the farm. In doing so, Angel and Luis confront their pasts as well as their inevitable destinies–destinies that profoundly shape Paolo’s own future.