The Amnesty Games

They’re getting played to death.

Every year, 100 of the most dangerous convicted criminals from the impoverished Ward are given a chance to earn their freedom and to live a life of luxury in Nova Heights, the walled-in city of glass and steel estates built into the side of a mountain.

All that’s standing between the Hopefuls and a full pardon are the Amnesty Games, a seven-day barrage of challenges, puzzles, mazes, traps, obstacles, contests, and competitions.

The games are wild, dangerous, and beamed by satellite onto every crumbling surface of the Ward, where they are enjoyed by thousands of rowdy fans.

This electrifying global phenomenon makes World Cup football hooliganism look like a church picnic.

In an added twist, at the Usurper Stage of the Amnesty Games, some of the Hopefuls are digitally “taken over” by selected Warders, who get to compete as avatars for the chance to win medicine, food, and water rations for themselves and for their families.

As trained warriors and defenders of Nova Heights, 17-year-old Alora and her team of Hawkers are assigned to oppose the Hopefuls in their quest for amnesty. Alora is confident in herself, in her team, and in the importance of the games for the ongoing stability of the elite members of Nova Heights.

But what happens when buried secrets are revealed and the two sides stop playing the game by the same rules?

For fans of the Hunger Games, Divergent, and the Maze Runner by the author of Recruitment and the Cure.