Tower Forty-One

About this book

Nineteen years after a solar storm put out the lights, Maren Callow teaches teenagers to climb the dead pylons of the Brann valley and strip them for flour. Her one law is simple: earth it before you touch it. Three years ago, on Tower Forty-One, her apprentice Pip died when the dam sent power down the line. Now the man who threw that switch is standing in her yard. Ezra Holm, heir to the walled Turbine House, wants to rebuild the broken spans and carry power to the fever ward before winter. He needs climbers. He cannot climb. He asks Maren to teach him. She says yes for a winter's grain, and for reasons she will not name. But every lesson brings them higher, and closer, and nearer to the one thing she has never told anyone about the day Pip died.