"Smart, pulls no punches. Lauren Lynne delivers characters who matter. Recalcitrant earns my attention from the very beginning."
C. Michael McGannon, best-selling author of the Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters series

When Elise Andrek becomes suspicious that she is being used by the government to design a game which mimics real-life scenarios depicting the eradication of those unwanted populations the government deems underworlders, her world is turned inside out.

Her worst fears are confirmed when she realizes she is responsible for the success of the government's mass murder of most of her graduating class. In the midst of the tragedy, Elise uncovers a nationwide conspiracy that reveals her class is just the beginning.

After escaping the murderous graduation trials, she becomes a fugitive on the run, caught between an unforgiving regime and a rising faction of resistance known as the Recalcitrants. Things become even more complicated when Bren, the only boy she has ever had serious eyes for, tries to rescue her, and she's not sure he can be trusted.

As the program she designed begins going online, more graduating classes are marked for extermination. Elise must survive this harsh new world and somehow infiltrate the government's military-protected servers and take the program offline. No matter how close she gets, no matter how much she tries to protect her friends, or the boy she wants for herself, the risks are high—the consequences even higher.

In a world that is not just possible, but likely, Lauren Lynne establishes herself as a leader among a new generation of dystopian fiction incorporating life-altering decisions, treacherous betrayals, and romance that gives us hope.