The Darkest Minds series — Author Alexandra Bracken (2024)

The Darkest Minds series is comprised of three novels and a collection of three novellas found in Through the Dark. My recommended reading order is: The Darkest Minds, In Time (novella), Never Fade, Sparks Rise (novella),In the Afterlight, and, finally, Beyond the Night (novella). There is a free short story about Liam set between The Darkest Minds and Never Fade that you'll receive when you sign up for my newsletter

The Darkest Minds was made into a movie in 2018, with Amandla Stenberg starring as Ruby.

THE DARKEST MINDS

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones. When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents. When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader.

But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living.

ORDER FROM

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSHOP | BOOKS-A-MILLION | INDIGO

NEVER FADE

Ruby never asked for the abilities that almost cost her her life. Now she must call upon them on a daily basis, leading dangerous missions to bring down a corrupt government and breaking into the minds of her enemies. Other kids in the Children”s League call Ruby ‘Leader’, but she knows what she really is: a monster.

When Ruby is entrusted with an explosive secret, she must embark on her most dangerous mission yet: leaving the Children”s League behind. Crucial information about the disease that killed most of America's children—and turned Ruby and the others who lived into feared and hated outcasts—has survived every attempt to destroy it. But the truth is only saved in one place: a flashdrive in the hands of Liam Stewart, the boy Ruby once believed was her future—and who now wouldn't recognize her. As Ruby sets out across a desperate, lawless country to find Liam—and answers about the catastrophe that has ripped both her life and America apart—she is torn between old friends and the promise she made to serve the League. Ruby will do anything to protect the people she loves.

But what if winning the war means losing herself?

ORDER FROM

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSHOP | BOOKS-A-MILLION | INDIGO

IN THE AFTERLIGHT

Ruby can’t look back. Fractured by an unbearable loss, she and the kids who survived the government’s attack on Los Angeles travel north to regroup. With them is a prisoner: Clancy Gray, son of the president, and one of the few people Ruby has encountered with abilities like hers. Only Ruby has any power over him, and just one slip could lead to Clancy wreaking havoc on their minds.

They are armed only with a volatile secret: proof of a government conspiracy to cover up the real cause of IAAN, the disease that has killed most of America’s children and left Ruby and others like her with powers the government will kill to keep contained. But internal strife may destroy their only chance to free the “rehabilitation camps” housing thousands of other Psi kids.

Meanwhile, reunited with Liam, the boy she would-and did-sacrifice everything for to keep alive, Ruby must face the painful repercussions of having tampered with his memories of her. She turns to Cole, his older brother, to provide the intense training she knows she will need to take down Gray and the government. But Cole has demons of his own, and one fatal mistake may be the spark that sets the world on fire.

ORDER FROM

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSHOP | BOOKS-A-MILLION | INDIGO

THROUGH THE DARK

Don’t miss this breathtaking collection of stories set in the world of the New York Timesbest-selling Darkest Minds trilogy. Featuring ebook original novellas In Timeand Sparks Rise, available in print for the first time, and a gripping, brand-new novella,Through the Darkis a must-have for fans of the Darkest Minds.This collection contains three novellas:In Time,Sparks Rise, and Beyond the Night.

IN TIME

Gabe’s life has been devastated in the wake of the economic crash. The only option left for someone like him to escape his tragic past is to leave his small town behind and to attempt to become a skip tracer. This already almost-impossible task is made all the more difficult by his first “score,”a young girl who won’t speak, but who changes his life in ways he could never imagine.

SPARKS RISE

Sam didn’t think things could get worse at Thurmond rehabilitation camp. Then the Reds arrive. Everyone assumed the kids with firepower had been killed years ago. Instead they were taken away, brainwashed, and returned as terrifyingly effective guards. To her horror, Sam recognizes one of them: Lucas, the one spark of light in Sam’s dark childhood.

Lucas has a deadly secret–he beat the brutal training that turned his fellow Reds into mindless drones. When Sam defends herself against an attack by a vile PSF guard and faces a harrowing punishment, Lucas must risk everything to save her.

BEYOND THE NIGHT

Now that she’s out of her camp, Mia only has one thought in her head: finding Lucas, her beloved older brother. She hasn’t seen him since they were separated and taken to different camps years ago, before Mia even became Psi. When Sam, Lucas’s childhood best friend, rescues Mia from the government’s inept care, Mia learns that nothing is as simple as she thought–and the past that she’s so desperate to salvage may not be possible to recover…

ORDER FROM

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSHOP | BOOKS-A-MILLION | INDIGO