Ilsa J. Bick – författare

Some true crimes reveal themselves in bits and pieces over time. One such case is the Florida School for Boys, a.k.a. the Dozier School, a place where—rather than reforming the children in their care—school officials tortured, raped, and killed them. Opened in 1900, the school closed in 2011 after a Department of Justice investigation substantiated allegations of routine beatings and killings made by about 100 survivors. Thus far, forensic anthropologist Dr. Erin Kimmerle and her team from the University of South Florida have uncovered fifty-five sets of human remains. Follow this story of institutional abuse, the brave survivors who spoke their truth, and the scientists and others who brought it to light.

“Bick’s compelling tale manages to be a blistering confessional and a page-turning whodunit . . . all in one. . . . Readers won’t be able to look away.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review People in Merit, Wisconsin, always said Jimmy was . . . you know. But people said all sorts of stupid stuff. Nobody really knew anything. Nobody really knew Jimmy. I guess you could say I knew Jimmy as well as anyone (which was not very well). I knew what scared him. And I knew he had dreams—even if I didn't understand them. Even if he nearly ruined my life to pursue them. Jimmy’s dead now, and I definitely know that better than anyone. I know about blood and bone and how bodies decompose. I know about shadows and stones and hatchets. I know what a last cry for help sounds like. I know what blood looks like on my own hands. What I don't know is if I can trust my own eyes. I don't know who threw the stone. Who swung the hatchet? Who are the shadows? What do the living owe the dead?   “A powerful tale of bigotry and murder in small-town Wisconsin. . . . a potent examination of teenage emotions . . . peer and parental pressures, and . . . the evil that people are capable of.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

There are stories where the girl gets her prince, and they live happily ever after. (This is not one of those stories.) Jenna Lord''s first sixteen years were not exactly a fairy tale. Her father is a controlling psycho and her mother is a drunk. She used to count on her older brother—until he shipped off to Iraq. And then, of course, there was the time she almost died in a fire. There are stories where the monster gets the girl, and everyone cries for his innocent victim. (This is not one of those stories either.) Mitch Anderson is many things: A dedicated teacher and coach. A caring husband. A man with a certain...magnetism. And there are stories where it''s hard to be sure who''s a prince and who''s a monster, who is a victim and who should live happily ever after. (These are the most interesting stories of all.)Drowning Instinct is a novel of pain, deception, desperation, and love against the odds—and the rules.

An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions. When it happens, Alex was hiking in the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP. For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it''s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human. Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling novel about a world that could be ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation.

The Apocalypse does not end. The Changed will grow in numbers. The Spared may not survive. Even before the EMPs brought down the world, Alex was on the run from the demons of her past and the monster living in her head. After the world was gone, she believed Rule could be a sanctuary for her and those she''d come to love. But she was wrong. Now Alex is in the fight of her life against the adults, who would use her, the survivors, who don''t trust her, and the Changed, who would eat her alive. Welcome to Shadows, the second book in the haunting apocalyptic Ashes Trilogy: where no one is safe and humans may be the worst of the monsters.

The Hunger Games mixes with The Walking Dead in this post-apocalyptic YA series that comes to a hair-raising conclusion in Monsters. The Changed are on the move. The Spared are out of time. The End...is now. When her parents died, Alex thought things couldn''t get much worse—until the doctors found the monster in her head. She headed into the wilderness as a good-bye, to leave everything behind. But then the end of the world happened, and Alex took the first step down a treacherous road of betrayal and terror and death. Now, with no hope of rescue—on the brink of starvation in a winter that just won''t quit—she discovers a new and horrifying truth. The Change isn''t over. The Changed are still evolving. And...they''ve had help. With this final volume of The Ashes Trilogy, Ilsa J. Bick delivers a riveting, blockbuster finish, returning readers to a brutal, post-apocalyptic world where no one is safe and hope is in short supply. A world where, from these ashes, the monsters will rise.