The Outcasts

Valley Ridge, Virginia is the kind of small town that believes itself beyond the reach of darkness-a place tucked against the Blue Ridge Mountains where people know hard winters, but not thekind of loss that leaves an empty chair at the dinner table. That illusion shatters the nighteighteen-year-old star pitcher Alex Trent throws a no-hitter and vanishes.What looks at first like a missing-person case soon reveals something far worse moving throughthe woods surrounding Valley Ridge. Alex isn't the first to disappear-and whatever took him islike nothing the world has ever encountered, the creation of a brilliant, unhinged virologist whohas set it loose on the town.At the heart of it are two teenagers the town has always overlooked. Wyatt Turner lives withosteogenesis imperfecta-bones so brittle they've broken more times than he can count-and atelekinetic power he barely understands and can't always control. Tommy Copeland lost his sightin a tragic accident, yet can see the world like no one else can. They call themselves the Outcasts.And they aren't the only ones who sense what's coming-an aging police chief named EdWatkins feels it too, and he's been hiding a secret of his own for years.On the surface, they're all just looking for Alex-Watkins working the case, Wyatt and Tommypulled in from the edges of a town that has never quite made room for them. But the closer theyget, the harder it becomes to explain why their paths keep crossing, why the three of them feelbound to this in a way no one else does. Something has drawn them together. What thatsomething is-and why it chose them-is the secret waiting at the heart of Valley Ridge.The Outcasts is a supernatural thriller about belonging, and about the particular loneliness ofyoung people whose gifts set them apart from the world they most want to join. It moves withthe momentum of a mystery but draws its weight from the bond between two boys who werenever supposed to matter. Read more