Delilah S. Dawson is best known around these parts for her Star Wars books ( Phasma , Galaxy ’s bound : Black Spire ) , but she ’s also written several non - Star Wars fantasy ( like theTales of Pellwith Kevin Hearne ) . Her latest , though , is The Violence , a dystopian thriller about a womanhood ’s touch-and-go path to exemption .
Here ’s a quick description , followed by the full cover song reveal — it ’s by Black Kat Design , free-base on an icon by Jonathan Kambouris / Gallery Stock — and a brief ( but bloody ) selection from The Violence .
Chelsea Martin appear to be the staring housewife : tie to her eminent school sweetheart , the female parent of two daughters , keeper of an spic-and-span base .
Crop of the cover of The Violence.Image: Del Rey Books
But Chelsea ’s husband has call on their theater into a prison ; he has been abusing her for year , cutting off her independency , autonomy , and support . She has nowhere to turn , not even to her narcissistic mother , Patricia , who is more implicated with maintaining the appearance of an idealistic family than she is with her daughter ’s literal well - being . And Chelsea is worried that her girl will be trapped just as she is — then a deep illness sweeps the nation .
Known as The Violence , this unwellness causes the infected to see sudden , volatile bouts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path . But for Chelsea , the chaos and mix-up the virus causes is an opportunity — and inspires a design to liberate herself from her abuser .
One daylight at luncheon , the strangest thing chance .
Image: Del Rey Books
Two boys get in a fight . But something about it is deeply wrong .
One of them , Jordan Stack , is kind of an son of a bitch and gets in conflict all the time , so it ’s no surprise that he ’s involved . But the other one , Thomas Canton , is a scraggy , dorky kid who ca n’t even run laps without wheeze . He barely speaks in class and when he does , his voice is a whispery mumble , but now he support , his chair squealing as he push back from the table . Ella reckon up at him , wondering what ’s gotten into him , and he jumps at Jordan like a social lion leaping on a gazelle — no , no , like a trust chihuahua set up itself at an unsuspicious toddler , so sudden , so feral , so blindly angered — driving the larger male child to the floor between the table . Now Thomas is on top of Jordan , straddling his chest , slam Jordan ’s head into the ground again and again . All the kids gather around them , as keen and twitchy as sharks smell out blood . The boys start yelling , “ push ! Fight ! Fight ! ” , while the girlfriend first command them and then beg them to stop . But they do n’t stop .
The sound Jordan ’s head throw , bouncing off the dotted storey , is like a Citrullus vulgaris being dropped . reddish droplet scatter and the sound changes a little , go squishier , and Ella only comment these small detail because she is sitting at the next table over , frozen in place . Some hoi polloi are memorialize the whole thing on their phones , but she is doing the same affair she does at home when Dad winds his arm around Mom ’s neck : just watching , asleep , still and silent , in horror .
Mr. Brannen and Ms. Baez show up and pry Thomas off Jordan , who is n’t go . Thomas does n’t attack them , though — he keep hurl out to get at Jordan , his small white hands curl into bloody nipper . Mr. Brannen carries him out of the elbow room like an angry computed tomography , the boy twisting and worm mutely in the self-aggrandising human beings ’s grasp . Ms. Baez hang to her stifle with a heavy thud , gently tap on Jordan ’s cheeks and rescind his head to scrutinise the bloody spot on the ground as Shelby Miller loudly explains that you ’re not theorise to move a hurt somebody ’s neck . Soon the teacher arrive and crowd everyone back to course of instruction with their half - eat lunch to watch out nature infotainment as they automatically masticate at their desk .
Thomas and Jordan do n’t come back to class . Jordan ’s friend Stevie secernate everyone that he ’s in the infirmary in a coma . The eve news talks about it without naming names , and Mom asks Ella a cluster of questions that she plain does n’t have it off the answers to about The Boys in Her Class and bullying and drug and the school ’s subject issues .
The weirdest affair , though , is that Ella was mightily there , sitting with Hayden and Tyler and Olivia and Sophie , and she saw the whole thing herself . Before it happen , the boy were n’t talk or even paying attention to each other . Jordan was n’t bullying Thomas , did n’t slip his lunch or threaten him or laugh at him or even search at him . He was talking to Stevie and eat on a sandwich , just being normal . They were all just being normal . And for all that Jordan is a total jerky , she ’s never actually seen him go after Thomas ; it ’s like they never even acknowledge each other ’s existence before that moment . Thomas was reading a book and eating a dish of firecracker . He did n’t say anything . Nothing was enunciate to him . He just dangle his crackers , stood up , twist , and attacked .
The whole affair throw no sense .
The scariest part , to Ella , was the look in Thomas ’s eyes .
It was like … no one was there at all .
From the volume The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson . Copyright © 2022 by Delilah S. Dawson . reprint by placement with Del Rey Books , an depression of Random House , a division of Penguin Random House LLC . All rightfulness reserved .
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson will be release February 1 , 2022 ; you may pre - order a copyhere .
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