Questa saga distopica è ambientata in un'America post-apocalittica, dove i sopravvissuti lottano per il potere dopo una devastante guerra nucleare. La società è governata da rituali brutali e intrighi politici che mantengono una fragile pace tra fazioni vincitrici e sconfitte. La protagonista, coinvolta in questo spietato gioco per il trono, deve affrontare i suoi doveri familiari e i suoi desideri personali, intraprendendo un pericoloso viaggio di tradimenti e alleanze inaspettate. È un racconto di coraggio, sacrificio e ricerca della propria identità tra le rovine del vecchio mondo.
In an apocalyptic future where girls from the losing faction are forcibly married to boys of the winning faction, sixteen-year-old Ivy is tasked to kill her fiancé Bishop, although when she finally meets him, he is not the monster she has been led to believe
"Engel makes good use of her setting; the fight for survival on the cusp of winter stokes the sense of danger in a way that matches Ivy's roiling feelings, and the love story moves with the slow-growing heat that Ivy needs." —Kirkus Reviews Beyond the fence. I am still alive. Barely. My name is Ivy Westfall. I am sixteen years old and a traitor. Three months ago, I was forced to marry the president's son, Bishop Lattimer—as all daughters of the losing side of the war are sold off in marriage to the sons of the winners. But I was different. I had a mission-to kill Bishop. Instead, I fell in love with him. Now I am an outcast, left to survive the brutal savagery of the lands outside of civilization. Yet even out here, there is hope. There is life beyond the fence. But I can't outrun my past. For my actions have set off a treasonous chain of events in Westfall that will change all of our fates—especially Bishop's. And this time, it is not enough to just survive...