The Flicker

Summary

ONE YEAR AGO, A SOLAR FLARE SCORCHED THE EARTH AND DESTROYED LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.

With their parents gone and their supplies running low, grieving stepsiblings Millie and Rose leave home with their infant half-brother in search of Millie’s grandma, a Seminole elder—who Millie knows in her gut is still alive, even if Rose isn’t so sure. Along the way, they meet a group of other surviving kids calling themselves the Lost Boys and their lone adult leader, who reluctantly agree to help them brave the hostile wasteland to make it to Millie’s grandma safely. But the landscape isn’t the only threat—there’s also the Hive, a villainous group that has spent the last year hoarding supplies and living in luxury … and will do anything to keep it that way.

Expertly balancing heartbreak and hope, The Flicker is both a thrilling survival story and a tender exploration of Indigenous ideas of identity and found family.

“Bound up in a gripping page-turner, the soul of The Flicker is fierce, relentless love for chosen family, the natural world, and a humanity exploited almost to the point of extinction. With unblinking honesty, this story invites readers to hope, and hope tenaciously for a better way of living.”—ALDER VAN OTTERLOO, author of Cattywampus and The Beautiful Something Else