Your mother calls out that you missed the bus. She sees it coming down the street. You don’t stop to hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, loving, patient mother. Of course not – you rush down the stairs and run to the corner.

Only when it’s the last time you see your mother do you start wishing you had stopped and done those things. Maybe even missed the bus.

But the bus sped down the street, so I ran.

Fourteen kids. A supermarket. A million things that could go wrong.

In Emmy Laybourne's action-packed debut novel "Monument 14," six students (some popular, some not), two eighth-graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain supermarket build a refuge for themselves. Meanwhile, outside, a series of escalating disasters, starting with a monstrous hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons accident, seems to tear apart the world as they know it.

By Emmy Laybourne:

The Monument 14 Trilogy
Monument 14 (Book 1)
Monument 14: Sky on Fire (Book 2)
Monument 14: Savage Drift (Book 3)

Sweet

The Berserk Series
Berserk (Book 1)
Ransacker (Book 2).