Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to roam the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which shook the Civil War and changed the nation forever. In this new America, the safety of all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children to attend combat schools to learn how to fight the dead.

Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in weaponry and etiquette to protect the wealthy. It is a chance for a better life for Black girls like Jane. After all, even the daughter of a wealthy Southern white woman could not shield her from society's expectations.

But this is not the life Jane wants. Just before graduating from Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is determined to return home. The politics of the eastern cities, which speak of restoring America to its glorious time before the rise of the dead, hardly interest her.

However, when families begin to disappear in Baltimore County, Jane becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that forces her into a desperate fight for her life against powerful enemies. And the restless dead seem to be the least of her problems.

Provocative, chilling, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland's striking vision of an America that is both strange and familiar—a country on the edge, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival collide.