THE CHAOS GRID

A teenager with a dangerous secret is hotly pursued across wastelands devastated by eco-catastrophe in this Mad Max–style thriller.

Two hundred years from now, in a Texas that’s been reduced to a few fortified cities and farms surrounded by extreme storms and mutant wildlife, 17-year-old Juniper Conway hopes to escape a forced move back to the city where she was orphaned. She joins an outgoing convoy of venturesome commercial truckers. But as if the (un)natural hazards lying in wait along the route—ranging from sudden blizzards to gigantic tunneling terra cetus, or earth whales—aren’t bad enough, her murdered scientist parents left her with a key component to an addictive, strength-enhancing, widely abused nano drug they’d developed. Now, all sorts of bad actors are hot on her trail. Along with featuring reckless gangs of colorfully dressed whale hunters, metal spikes as fashion accessories, and high-tech body enhancements, Lewellen propels her dystopian tale on a bed of low-pressure romantic steam as Juniper, who reads white, is thrown into sustained contact with Dax Garza, the truckers’ hot Mexican lead driver, who has secrets of his own. Readers will certainly be on Juniper’s side from her initial escape until, in a memorably gross capper, she literally finds herself in the belly of the (cetacean) beast.

A dystopian thrill ride with room for sequels.