Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Children’s, Teenage & Educational
Weblink
http://barrylyga.com/

THE SECRET SEA

Barry Lyga

Pitched as a 21st-century WRINKLE IN TIME, THE SECRET SEA is about three friends who find themselves plunged into a world of quantum physics, a rare disease that only affects identical twins, and a mysterious fact about a real-life global catastrophe.

Twelve-year-old Zak Killian has a voice inside his head named Tommy. He thinks it’s a guardian angel, but the truth is both more wondrous and more horrific. One night, while sleepwalking in the rubble of 9/11, Zak discovers a secret that links his own past to an astonishing truth about the universe... and what lies beyond it. Zak and his friends soon find themselves plunged into an adventure of quantum physics, a rare disease that only affects identical twins, and life after death. Hunted and haunted by forces living and dead, they must figure out who they can really trust, if they are ever going to get back home.

Barry Lyga graduated from Yale with a degree in English, then worked in the comic book industry for ten years. During that time, he became a respected expert in the field, both as a comic book writer and as a marketing professional, spearheading and developing Free Comic Book Day. His other books include: MANGAMAN (Houghton Mifflin, 2011), a graphic novel, with the graphic artist Colleen Doran, which was chosen as a BEA Best Graphic Novel for Teens and nominated by YALSA for the 2012 list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens. With Scholastic, he has published the ARCHVILLAIN trilogy: ARCHVILLAIN (Scholastic, 2010) and MAD MASK (Scholastic, January 2012). Lyga is also the author of WOLVERINE: Worst Day Ever! (Marvel, 2010), GOTH GIRL RISING (Houghton Mifflin, 2009), HERO-TYPE (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), nominated for the Milwaukee County Teen Book Award; BOY TOY (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Autumn 2007 Book Sense Children’s Pick List, and 2007 Cybil Award Winner; and THE ASTONISHING ADVENTURES OF FANBOY AND GOTH GIRL (Houghton Mifflin 2006), which was chosen as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, 144 a 2006 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, long-listed for an Inkys Award in Australia, and featured as a “Flying Start” in Publishers Weekly.

Available products
Book Published 2016-08-23 by Feiwel & Friends
Book Published 2016-08-23 by Feiwel & Friends

Comments

Even though he’s grown up in New York City, 12-year-old Zak has lived a fairly sheltered life. He has aheart condition that has caused his parents, now in the middle of a contentious divorce, to keep tight tabson him—and they would only be tighter if Zak’s parents knew he was hearing voices. But when Zak has apremonition of the subway filling with water and the mysterious voice he thinks of as his guardian angelwarns him to run, Zak listens, only to find himself trapped in an alternate-universe New York with his twobest friends, Moira and Khalid. Facing dangers from both this new world, which isn’t kind to women, andthe increasingly untrustworthy voices in Zak’s head, the three struggle to find a way home that won’t havecataclysmic consequences. Lyga returns to middle grade with a darklycompelling, if occasionally complicated, look at family, morality, and the long-term effects evenseemingly small choices can have. A thoughtful—and thought-provoking—piece of science fiction.

Whoa. Hold onto your seats. We've got ADVENTURE and HIGH-STAKES HORROR here that takes us FROM OUR WORLD TO ANOTHER. You did it, Barry. This is the novel you were meant to write.

Terrifying visions of subway stations flooded by ocean water. A somnambulistic journey to the World Trade Center. Lyga creates a compelling and impressively fleshed out alternate universe; sci-fi, fantasy, and dystopian elements feature throughout, from mysterious wild magic to the glowing electroleum power source. A subplot involving the brutal repression of women by means of a legal system very similar to our own slavery adds depth to the comparison of the two worlds. The narrative’s success ultimately relies on its compelling adventures and character development. This work ultimately delivers the sci-fi, fantasy, and dystopian goods and will draw in middle schoolers with its impressive world-building. A strong choice for many young adult and upper–middle grade collections.

When 12-year-old Zak Killian starts dreaming of boats and having visions of flooded Manhattan subways that no one else can see, he begins to think that the voice he keeps hearing in his head might not be his imagination. In a thrilling standalone adventure, Zak learns that his longstanding heart condition is the result of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome—he siphoned blood from an identical twin in the womb. Zak's twin brother, Tommy, died when the boys were two, and their parents kept Tommy's existence a secret. Now Zak is hearing Tommy, who tells Zak that he can save him if he and his best friends Khalid and Moira venture into a parallel universe. Lyga uses the real-life mystery of a ship under Ground Zero as a spark for the story, and an endnote gives more information and context to the discovery. Readers will love the fast-paced action and terrifying details of the alternate timeline Zak and friends find themselves in, and the satisfying conclusion will leave them considering questions of identity and family.