16-year-old Lyric Walker's life is turned upside down when she witnesses the arrival of 20,000 Triton, a five-nation race of ocean-dwelling warriors, on her beach in Coney Island. Confined to a militarised ghetto of tents, the Tritons cause ugly changes in the town?xenophobia, violence, and fear surpass humanity's initial wonder and awe. But the Triton's arrival also reveals a shocking family secret: her own mother is a Triton, which makes Lyric half-Triton. When the Triton agree to allow a small handful of their children to enroll in a human school where Lyric is a student, she can no longer avoid her people. She is recruited to help the crown prince, a boy named Fathom, assimilate, and begins to fall for him. But their love is a dangerous one, and there are forces on both sides working to keep them apart. After a Triton teenager kills a human boy, everything goes from bad to worse. And Lyric finds herself caught in the middle, just as both of their races must face the greatest threat the world has ever seen. For fans of Rick Yancey and Marie Lu, 'Undertow' is book one in this much-anticipated, genre-breaking, breath-catching new trilogy for teens from New York Times bestselling author Michael Buckley. AUTHOR: Michael Buckley's two middle grade series, the Sisters Grimm and NERDS, have sold more than 2.5 million copies. He has also worked as a stand-up comic, television writer, pasta maker, and a singer in a punk rock band. Visit his website at www.michaelbuckleywrites.com. A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR: *** What can fans of Sisters Grimm and NERDS expect from your first YA novel for teens? My fan base is the best. They're incredibly loyal and enthusiastic, so I turned to a few 'superfans' for their opinions on Undertow. They told me it is scary, romantic, shocking, thrilling, and thought-provoking. This story is more sophisticated and mature than what I've written before, but so is my audience. They grew up with the Sisters Grimm and NERDS, and I wrote this with them in mind. It has my brand of humor, my pacing, and the quirky characters I'm known for creating, but aside from that, it's a very different kind of story. ***What can readers expect to find that's different? Everything. For one, the main character, Lyric Walker, is not a spunky kid detective. She's a young woman living in a xenophobic, racist, violent world. She is surrounded by monsters, both real and metaphorical, and she has learned that keeping her head down keeps her alive. Second, the story has a conscience that my other books don't have. It asks some tough questions and hopefully sparks conversations about our society and who we claim to be. One huge Sisters Grimm fan told me she was expecting an older Sabrina and Daphne Grimm but got something entirely different. She said the book felt like being tossed into the deep end of the pool. It's unexpected, but my fans know better than to think I'm just going to keep telling the same stories over and over again. ***UNDERTOW promo video: http://youtu.be/dPVksM8_fII
