The Vault of Heaven

This second book in the New World trilogy—a gripping successor to Chaos Walking—is Patrick Ness at his fiercest and finest.

At a breakneck pace and with the highest moral and physical stakes, a continuation of a series by a two-time Carnegie Medalist picks up where the highly praised Piper at the Gates of Dusk left off. Ben’s brother Max has been stolen, along with every other young person in the human settlement of New World and a host of young from the Land. But where have they gone? And why has the massive, stonelike Glyph that took them not left its position in midair, a thousand meters above Haven? As a daring attack on the Glyph is planned, Ben finds himself sent on a secret mission, one that will alter reality as he knows it.

Meanwhile, who is the soldier named M who has woken up in a desolate battleground, along with a unit of other young fighters who likewise don’t remember their names? They’re armed and they’re in uniform, but they don’t know what they’re meant to be fighting, and the “enemy” is nowhere to be seen, only trench after trench after trench in a barren wasteland. The only thing they know for certain is that they have to run from an all-obliterating nothing that’s eating the world behind them. It will kill you and then, much worse, it will bring you back.