What Lies in the Middle

By Bekki Diefendorf

Description:

Manipulation. Love. Betrayal. When people are the scarcest commodity, anything goes.

Kessa McKnight’s future was secure, but security is an illusion. Now, broken and desperate to escape the constant reminders of what her life should have been, Kessa volunteers as ambassador in a newly-established marriage and trade alliance between the two largest remaining cities in North America. When a dark secret from her past threatens both new life and old, Kessa must rise up or risk losing everything.

Jace Morton has lived his whole life in his older brother’s shadow. When Jace finds himself traded to another city, the slave yet again of his father’s political ambitions, he embraces the upside. In a place where no one knows his family, he can finally be himself. But a thousand miles isn’t far enough to escape his father’s control, and this time dad’s madness might destroy everything he’s grown to love.

What Lies in the Middle is the first in a series of standalone YA dystopian romance novels perfect for fans of Kasie West and Veronica Roth.

Book Takeaway:

God's over-arching plan is at work, even in the midst of tragedy.

Why the author wrote this book:

I wrote this book because all of the dystopian novels being offered to our teens omitted God from the equation, and most also present deviant forms of sexuality. I wanted Christian teens (and adults who like YA) to have something of quality in this genre that they could read that inspires faith and purity without ignoring reality.
Note: a non-Christian character uses marijuana as a coping method at the beginning of the book. There is also one scene of alcohol being consumed to excess by non-Christian adults. Neither is portrayed in a positive light.