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Sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone is in the wasteland with nothing but her baby sister, a handful of supplies, and a rumor to guide her when she is captured by the people of Sylum, a dystopian society where she must follow a strict social code or neversee her sister again. Since earning an MA in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, Caragh M. O´Brien has been a high school teacher, an author of romance novels, and now a novelist for teens. Her novels Birthmarked and Prized were named YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults. Birthmarked was also a Junior Library Guild Selection and chosen for the ALA 2011 Amelia Bloomer List. She lives with her family and writes from her home in Connecticut.

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Caragh O´Brien wuchs in Minnesota auf und studierte Literatur und Kreatives Schreiben. Nach dem Studium begann sie als Highschool-Lehrerin zu arbeiten und entdeckte nebenbei die Freude am Schreiben. Caragh O´Brien ist verheiratet, hat drei Kinder und lebt mit ihrer Familie und zwei Wüstenrennmäusen in Connecticut.

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