A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? The street seems familiar, but everything is abandoned, overgrown, covered in dust.

What's going on? Is it real? Or has he woken up in his own personal hell? Seth begins to search for answers, hoping desperately that there must be more to this life, or perhaps this afterlife...

Published
September 2013
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Author

Patrick Ness

Patrick Ness is the author of The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer – books one and two in the Chaos Walking trilogy – for which he has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize. He was also shortlisted for the Carnegie medal. Patrick has written two other books for adults and is a literary critic for the Guardian. He lives in London.