• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

An unbelievable tale of adventure and romance, in the face of the darkest of nightmares.

Smallpox epidemics, floods, droughts - for sixteen-year-old Lucy, the end of the world came and went, taking 99% of the population with it. As the weather continues to rage out of control, and Sweepers clean the streets of plague victims, Lucy survives alone in the wilds of Central Park, hunting and foraging for food. But when she is rescued from a vicious pack of hunting dogs by a mysterious boy named Aidan, she reluctantly realizes she cannot continue on her own. She joins Aidan's band of survivors, yet a new danger awaits her: The Sweepers are looking for her, and they've laid a trap. There's something special about Lucy, and the Sweepers will stop at nothing to have her in their clutches.

Jo Treggiari was born in London, England, and raised in Canada. She spent many years in Oakland, California, and New York, where she trained as a boxer, wrote for a punk magazine, and owned a gangster rap/indie rock record label. Her novel Ashes, Ashes, a YA post-apocalyptic adventure published by Scholastic Press, was a multiple award nominee and bestseller. Her acclaimed novella Love You Like Suicide, appeared in the Fierce Ink Press anthology Becoming Fierce: Teen Stories IRL and as a limited edition of the long-running zine Cometbus. Her most recent YA novels are Blood Will Out, a psychological thriller, published by Penguin Teen (2018), and a second thriller, The Grey Sisters (Penguin Teen, 2019), which was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary award and was shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis award.

Jo Treggiari's profile page

• Short-listed, OLA White Pine Award, Fiction
• Short-listed, Snow Willow Award (Saskatchewan Young Readers' Choice)

Ashes, Ashes

For 16-year-old Lucy, the end of the world came with floods, droughts and an epidemic that wiped out 99% of the population. As the weather continues to rage, the Sweepers rid the streets of plague victims, and Lucy survives in the wilds of Central Park alone. However, when a boy named Aidan rescues her from a pack of dogs, she realizes that she can’t continue on her own. Unfortunately, joining his band of survivors won’t save Lucy; the Sweepers are looking for her now and they’ll stop at nothing to get her.

Post-apocalyptic novels have become all the rage in 2011, and Jo Treggiari makes great use of the genre in this non-stop action adventure novel. But what makes it fast paced? Perhaps it’s because, rather than keeping the main character out of any real danger, Ashes, Ashes never lets readers forget that Lucy is in constant danger no matter what decisions she makes. The pacing and risk are also two of the reasons that both reluctant readers and boys will enjoy it, despite the fact that the main character is female. Beyond the characters and plot-driven narrative, the themes of global warming, environmental disasters, pandemics and survivor’s guilt will appeal to teens and adult readers of young adult fiction.

Treggiari delivers a hard-hitting YA novel that will appeal to a wide variety of readers. Drawing on pop culture and logical details about disasters, the author goes above and beyond the reader’s expectations and is sure to win dedicated fans.