Sixteen-year-old Agnes, who is white, lives with her family in Red Creek, the site of an isolationist Christian cult led by the powerful Prophet. Agnes is a model member of the group, caring for her five younger siblings and obeying the Prophet's strict rules-except one. Agnes defies the prohibition against contact outside the community borders to meet secretly each month with Matilda, an Outsider nurse, who brings insulin to treat her little brother Ezekiel's type 1 diabetes. When the Prophet orders Agnes to marry a church Patriarch, she knows Ezekiel's access to the vital treatment will be disrupted, and her habit of obedience is shaken. The desperate situation is amplified by news of a pandemic raging in the Outside. The Prophet brings an infected dog into Red Creek, claiming that the faithful will be unharmed, but the bizarre disease begins to spread. Realizing the Prophet is a liar, Agnes launches an escape with Ezekiel, just as her rebellious younger sister Beth, long defiant of Red Creek restrictions, resolves to comply with the Prophet's demands. Agnes and Ezekiel join forces with Matilda and her son Danny, who are Black, in a nearby town, where the enormity of the pandemic's impact becomes clear, while the situation at Red Creek implodes. Questions of individual faith and spirituality co-exist with the suspense of a sci-fi global crisis (written pre-COVID), budding romance, and family loyalty, while Agnes's religious power eludes traditional definitions. (Age 13 and older)

A Bank Street Best Book of 2021

The Handmaid's Tale meets Wilder Girls in this genre-defying novel about a girl who escapes a terrifying cult only to discover that the world Outside has succumbed to a viral apocalypse.

Agnes loves her home of Red Creek—its quiet, sunny mornings, its dusty roads, and its God. There, she cares tirelessly for her younger siblings and follows the town's strict laws. What she doesn't know is that Red Creek is a cult, controlled by a madman who calls himself a prophet.

Then Agnes meets Danny, an Outsider boy, and begins to question what is and isn't a sin. Her younger brother, Ezekiel, will die without the insulin she barters for once a month, even though medicine is considered outlawed. Is she a sinner for saving him? Is her sister, Beth, a sinner for dreaming of the world beyond Red Creek?

As the Prophet grows more dangerous, Agnes realizes she must escape with Ezekiel and leave everyone else, including Beth, behind. But it isn't safe Outside, either: A viral pandemic is burning through the population at a terrifying rate. As Agnes ventures forth, a mysterious connection grows between her and the Virus. But in a world where faith, miracles, and cruelty have long been indistinguishable, will Agnes be able to choose between saving her family and saving the world?