Vampires showed up, took over, and turned the whole planet into their personal all-you-can-drink buffet. The president? Bloodsucker. The government? Bloodsuckers. My social life? Absolutely nonexistent. But hey, at least I had one thing going for me―slayer training. My twin sister, Ripley, and I were about to go pro, officially joining the ranks of the last people on earth who actually do something about the whole "undead overlords" situation.

For a few weeks every summer, Sara was Mandy's best friend. At Highmark, the lake resort where their families vacationed, the two were in a world of their own. Or at least Mandy got to be part of Sara's world. But now Sara's dead. The police ruled her death an accident; a tragic mistake after a night of impaired judgment. For the past year, Mandy's coped by escaping: leaving home and barely keeping it together at school. The last thing she wants to do is return to Highmark this summer—even if she does need "closure."

Truyan Saigas didn't choose to become a con artist, but after her father is lost at sea, it’s up to her to support her mother and two younger sisters. A gifted art forger, Tru has the unique ability to paint the future, but even such magic is not enough to put her family back together again, or stave off the gangsters demanding payment in blood for her mother’s gambling debts.

Seventeen year-old Lark Goode wants only one thing: to escape her small town of Cutwater and the history of her family name. It’s a history that began during the Dutch tulip mania of 1636, when Lark’s ancestor stole the last remaining tulip bulbs and fled to America. But when the tulips bloomed on American soil, madness sprouted from their snowy white petals. The madness was love. Now, generations later, the Goodes remain cursed—the unnatural flowers outside their home causing locals to fall helplessly in love with anyone carrying Goode blood in their veins.

Once every generation, the Major Gods hold a Celestial Banquet, inviting chefs from all over the Continent to prepare mouthwatering fantastical feasts. The winner is awarded the fabled Peaches of Immortality, along with a lifetime of fame and fortune. The losers perish per the whims of the fickle gods. Hot-headed noodle chef Cai enters the competition with dreams of owning her own restaurant and supporting her impoverished Peninsula town.

Nan's story has always been the same. Last summer, she, Luce, Edie, and Jane took a boat out for one final swim in the river. It was a perfect summer night. But the only one who returned that night was Nan. She maintains that she has no idea what happened to her three friends. The girls went ahead, and it was as though they disappeared into thin air. Now, one year later, it's the memorial of that night. All of Saltcedar has gathered at the river. Nan is even wearing the same clothes she wore that fateful day last summer. And when Luce climbs out of the water, no one is more surprised than Nan.

Celia Gilbert is the perfect friend—loyal, trustworthy, and committed to mending her best friends’ broken hearts. She’s the reason the trio is spending the summer in Lovesick Falls, the idyllic little town where Touchstone’s sort-of-uncle’s cabin was waiting to be house-sat by three unsupervised (but totally responsible) teenagers. After all, Celia, Ros, and Touchstone have been best friends since childhood. Sure, Celia is in love with Ros, and Touchstone was once in love with Celia—but that’s the beauty of a place like Lovesick Falls. If you fell in love, you could fall out.

First in his class and last in his noble line, Fabian Galloway’s only hope of a good future is passing his elite school's honors class. It’s only offered to the best thirteen students, and those students have a single assignment: kill their professor. If they succeed, their student debt is forgiven. However, if an assassination attempt fails or the professor is alive at the end of the year, the students’ lives are forfeit. And dealing with the professor, a devil summoned solely to kill or be killed, is no easy task.

Hara Duja Gatdula, queen of the island nation of Maynara, holds the divine power to move the earth. But her strength is failing and the line of succession gives her little comfort. Her heir, Laya, is a danger—a petty and passionate princess who wields the enormous power of the skies with fickle indifference. Circling the throne is Imeria Kulaw—the matriarch of a traitorous rival family who wields recklessly enhanced powers of her own—with designs to secure a high-ranking position for her son and claim the crown for her family.

When Dawson Sumter goes missing, all he leaves behind is a smattering of blood in room 4 of the debt-ridden motel owned by Neera Singh's family. Disappearances like this aren't uncommon in the rural Georgia town of Carrion, especially every thirteen years when a periodical cicada brood returns from underground, shrieking their deafening screams. For Neera, Dawson is another reminder that in this corner of the South, the rich only get richer, and the poor—well, nothing good comes their way.