Lily Herne è lo pseudonimo del team di scrittrici madre-figlia Sarah e Savannah Lotz. Sarah, una scrittrice nota per la sua predilezione per le identità multiple, crea anche horror urbano con lo pseudonimo SL Grey, oltre a romanzi polizieschi, racconti antologizzati a livello internazionale e sceneggiature a suo nome. Savannah, un'appassionata fanática del fantasy, sta attualmente proseguendo i suoi studi di sceneggiatura, portando un distintivo tocco fantasioso al loro lavoro collaborativo. Insieme, sfruttano i loro diversi background per creare narrazioni avvincenti che fondono generi e catturano l'immaginazione dei lettori.
Lele, Ginger, Ash and Saint - aka the Mall Rats - are hiding out in the Deadlands, a once-prosperous area of Cape Town, now swarming with the living dead. Exiled from the city enclave for crimes against the Resurrectionist State, the Rats face a stark choice: return and risk capture - or leave Cape Town and go in search of other survivors.
Since the apocalypse, Cape Town's suburbs have become zombie-infested Deadlands. Human survivors are protected from the living dead by sinister, shrouded figures - the Guardians. In return, five teenagers are 'chosen' and handed over to them for a mysterious purpose: this year, Lele de la Fontein's name is picked but she escapes, willing to take her chances in the Deadlands. Alone, exiled and unable to return home, she runs into a misfit gang of renegade teens: Saint, a tough Batswana girl; Ginger, a wise-cracking Brit; and handsome Ash, a former child soldier. Under their tutelage, Lele learns how to seriously destroy zombies and together they uncover the corruption endemic in Cape Town, and come to learn the sickening truth about the Guardians.