Andrew Sweet Knihy

Joel is the 16-year-old heir to the Austin Life Community Church, a congregation with hundreds of in-person attendees. In virtual numbers, the church is one of the most successful megachurches in Texas, with viewers numbering in the millions-all one day to be Joel's parishioners. Except Joel's not sure that's what he wants. What Joel thinks he wants is to feel the Lord the way Lonnie Lloyd Simpson does. While Joel works the controls for his mother's sermons, middle-aged Lonnie gyrates, prostrates, and speaks in tongues. Lonnie oozes the Lord's spirit. But when Joel seeks out Lonnie to learn how, he begins to realize that the church he thought he knew didn't become Texas' biggest by accident. Whether it's the Lord's work or the hand of someone else, Joel doesn't know. One thing he does know is that the bodies are piling up, and if he's not careful, he could find himself collateral damage in a struggle for power that will rock the church to its foundations.

Brighton Academy student Larken Marche is sixteen years old, and the only thing she wants to do is play lofting. As the most junior member on the varsity team, she has a real shot at making a career out of the team sport, and in 2201, Lofting is a great career choice. Her best friend Molly Kostic is the kind of friend that both entertains and frustrates. Capable of telling the truth about half the time, when Molly decides that she likes Larken's (fraternal) twin brother Oliver, Larken doesn't know whether to be happy for her or nervous about the possibility that Oliver will become just another proverbial notch in Molly's belt. When a strange boy, Elijah Grant, arrives at Brighton via transfer, he looks like a male copy of Larken, down to her nose and chin. Questions begin to circulate about Elijah's origins and rumors fly about them being triplets instead of twins, or worse, that she, Oliver, and Elijah might all three be clones. Before they can put the rumors to rest, a man is killed in downtown Portland by someone who looks exactly like Oliver, leading to Oliver's arrest. Larken and Molly work against the clock to rescue a brother Larken knows is innocent. Walking the line between two extremist factions, Larken and Oliver must fight for their right to exist.