Guardian Children's Fiction Prize
2006 · Children's Fiction · Finalist
About This Book
In a futuristic world, will everyone be replaceable?
Mira had always lived quietly until the day a stranger is shot and killed in front of her. The woman's body is quickly removed, leaving bloodstained snow and a crumpled piece of paper on the ground as the only clues to her murder. Mira discovers that the paper contains a list of names, including her own -- but why? Terrified, she begins to view everyone with suspicion, and attempts to follow the clues that the dead woman left behind, unaware of the danger she is stumbling into.
For Mira lives in an environmentally damaged and socially dangerous Great Britain that is ruled by the caste of the Great Families, forming a society where reproduction is strictly limited and where families keep illegal clones -- or "spares" -- of themselves, just in case a replacement is ever needed....
Mira had always lived quietly until the day a stranger is shot and killed in front of her. The woman's body is quickly removed, leaving bloodstained snow and a crumpled piece of paper on the ground as the only clues to her murder. Mira discovers that the paper contains a list of names, including her own -- but why? Terrified, she begins to view everyone with suspicion, and attempts to follow the clues that the dead woman left behind, unaware of the danger she is stumbling into.
For Mira lives in an environmentally damaged and socially dangerous Great Britain that is ruled by the caste of the Great Families, forming a society where reproduction is strictly limited and where families keep illegal clones -- or "spares" -- of themselves, just in case a replacement is ever needed....
