When that child is taken away by the bureaucratic-loving Gorgios, Serena attacks two people working with social services (an agency nicknamed the Cruelty) and has to escape when she believes she kills one of them. The book follows the story of Serena, a half-Yulang, half-Gorgio who has been declared outcast because her sister had a child out of wedlock. I can't believe this book isn't more popular than it is - it's so good! I actually had a hard time deciding which genre it would fit into (in my opinion, always the sign of an interesting, complex story), but I think 'alternate history' works best.

Along the way, Serena finds the answers she seeks-and some she didn’t even know she was looking for. With the help of a boy named Shem, who is on a quest of his own, Serena travels deep into the mountains, where precious gems are mined, and across barren plains, where white-clad Trident Riders are terrorizing anyone who is not Gorgio. The Gorgios are even worse, trying to take the child away.Ī run-in with social services, aptly nicknamed the Cruelty, launches Serena on a journey that is at once an escape and a quest to reunite her family. The sisters get no help from the Yulang, because Willow’s child was born out of wedlock and the family has been declared outcast. By birth they are half Yulang, half Gorgio, but are accepted by neither race. In a society similar to ours in some ways and very different in others, 16-year-old Serena and her older sister, Willow, struggle to get by in a tough, crime-infested urban neighborhood.

The Amethyst Road by Louise Spiegler