Title: Plus One
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Date of Publication: April 8, 2014
Blurb:
Divided by day and night and on the run from
authorities, star-crossed young lovers unearth a sinister conspiracy in this
compelling romantic thriller.
Seventeen-year-old Soleil Le Coeur is a Smudge—a
night dweller prohibited by law from going out during the day. When she fakes
an injury in order to get access to and kidnap her newborn niece—a day dweller,
or Ray—she sets in motion a fast-paced adventure that will bring her into
conflict with the powerful lawmakers who order her world, and draw her together
with the boy she was destined to fall in love with, but who is also a Ray.
Set in a vivid alternate reality and peopled with
complex, deeply human characters on both sides of the day-night divide, Plus
One is a brilliantly imagined drama of individual liberty and civil rights, and
a fast-paced romantic adventure story.
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17934493-plus-one
Purchase links: Amazon | Barnes
& Noble | The
Book Depository
Excerpt:
Wednesday
4:30
A.M.
It takes guts to
deliberately mutilate your hand while operating a blister-pack sealing machine,
but all I had going for me was guts. It seemed like a fair trade: lose maybe a
week’s wages and possibly the tip of my right middle finger, and in exchange
Poppu would get to hold his great- granddaughter before he died.
I wasn’t into
babies, but Poppu’s unseeing eyes filled to spilling when he spoke of Ciel’s
daughter, and that was more than I could bear. It was absurd to me that the
dying should grieve the living when the living in this case was only seven
miles away. Poppu needed to hold that baby, and I was going to bring her to
him, even if Ciel wouldn’t.
The machine was
programmed to drop daily doses of Circa-Diem and vitamin D into the thirty
slots of a blister tray. My job was mind- numbingly boring, and I’d done it
maybe a hundred thousand times before without messing up: align a perforated
prescription card on the conveyor, slip the PVC blister tray into the card,
slide the conveyor to the right under the pill dispenser, inspect the pills
after the tray has been filled, fold the foil half of the card over, and slide
the conveyor to the left under the heat-sealing plate. Over and over I’d gone
through these motions for hours after school, with the rhythmic swooshing,
whirring, and stamping of the factory’s powder compresses, laser inscribers,
and motors penetrating my wax earplugs no matter how well I molded them to my
ear canal.
I should have
had a concrete plan for stealing my brother’s baby, with backups and
contingencies, but that’s not how my brain works. I only knew for sure how I
was going to get into the hospital. There were possible complications that I
pushed to the periphery of my mind because they were too overwhelming to think
about: I didn’t know how I’d return my niece when I was done with her; I’d be
navigating the city during the day with only a Smudge ID; if I was detained by
an Hour Guard, there was a chance I’d never see Poppu again.
About
Elizabeth Fama:
Elizabeth Fama is the author of Plus One (FSG,
2014), Monstrous Beauty (FSG, 2012), a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults
selection and Odyssey Award honor winner, and Overboard (Cricket Books, 2002),
an ALA Best Books for Young Adults. She is represented by Sara Crowe of Harvey
Klinger, Inc.
Website: http://www.elizabethfama.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/elizabethfama
Tumblr: http://elizabethfama.tumblr.com/
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