About This Book
What would life be like in a country with a government that controlled who lived and who died? In the first book of the For a Generation series, fourteen-year-old Matthia Hefner is growing up in this oppressive political climate. Her country--called "The Middle Country"--is a thirty-first century dictatorship in what was once the United States of America. Here, parents are allowed one subjection: a child or set of multiples. Any subsequent pregnancies conceived before the oldest child has reached the age of emancipation are terminated by abortion. Anyone who cannot contribute to the economy is euthanized. Knowledge of the outside world and the past is filtered through a memory chip implanted in citizens at birth. Teenagers are evaluated and placed for work upon completion of secondary school. Matthia and her best friend, Octavia Harrison are anticipating learning their evaluation results. Octavia, a mysterious introvert with highly functioning autism, is given a place in the intelligence agency, while Matthia is assigned work as an abortion nurse. She is conflicted by what her parents have taught her, the opposite of what the government says. Everything changes when she meets Keegan Wilcox, the time-traveling intelligence agent who knows more about Matthia than she wants to admit. From Keegan, she learns how abortion destroyed America and how The Middle Country is headed for the same downfall. She declines at first, but after learning of her mother's illegal pregnancy, quickly changes her mind. Keegan sends her on a mission to the last generation of America with a plan to reverse its destruction, save the past, and preserve the future.
