When stories are forbidden, remembering becomes rebellion.
A dystopian revolution for fans of thought-policing regimes, found-family resistance, and the enduring power of the written word.
In a world where books are burned and memory is criminal, seventeen-year-old Kaia Mori clutches the last relic of her past: her mother's ribboned bookmark. It's the only piece of her family, her history-her truth-that the League of Security and Censorship hasn't stolen.
That is, until the Book Burnings arrive in her city.
As stories are incinerated and knowledge turned to ash, Kaia dares to do the unthinkable: she remembers. Her defiance marks her as an anomaly-and a threat. Rejected by the regime's Academy, humiliated, and labeled psychologically unfit, Kaia is ready to disappear into silence.
But the resistance has other plans.
When a mysterious override pulls her back into the system, Kaia is thrust into the brutal training halls of the Literary Defense Corps (LDC)-a state-run institution that claims to preserve what matters, even as it erases what came before. There, recruits are taught to fight, to forget, and to obey. But Kaia has never been good at obedience. And stories-once planted-have a way of growing in the dark.
As Kaia is drawn deeper into the heart of the regime, she must decide: Will she become the weapon they forged-or the revolution they never saw coming?
