AQUA

12 years to prepare for one chance to succeed... Being afraid of failure is normal, but no one fears success except eighteen-year-old Jazwyn Ripley, who has worked her entire life for a chance to become more than the scant apprenticeships in the Seaboard North stacks can offer. It's all too clear that at the bottom, there's nowhere to go but down. Only the best can begin career training at Gaia Sur, the elite academy on the ocean floor, but when Jazz begins receiving cryptic messages from past Gaia cadets originating from within the earth's core, she and her friends discover that the road to everything they've ever wanted now leads somewhere they never intended to go. The State estimates the atmosphere will only sustain a handful of generations before overcrowding, air quality, and economic hardship make it nearly impossible to survive, let alone thrive in an ever-shrinking topside world. Government buildings and the global elite have already relocated four miles underwater where Gaia Sur has led the way in biodesign, omnicoding, astronavigation, and diplomacy careers, just to name a few of the futures available to those who have what it takes to make a difference for themselves and their families. For everyone else--the Seaboarder working class, the Tinkerers, the Fishers, the Fringe, even the domed Skyboard mountain pseudo-elite--time is running out. Fifteen students will beat the odds only to find themselves in over their heads with one way out: going deeper. Fast-paced, character driven, and full of plot twists you'll never see coming, take a deep breath and get ready to dive into AQUA, the first book in The Elements series.