Carol Riggs

"The Body Institute is a roller coaster of a book. This fast-paced sci-fi thriller grapples with issues of identity and scientific technology run amok in a society only two steps ahead of our own, while scrutinizing an all-encompassing obsession with being thin which is very much part of the here and now. Readers will love the twists and turns and be prompted to question their own relationship to technology, body image and the ever-growing power of mega-corporations." - C.K. Kelly Martin, author of Yesterday and Tomorrow Meet Morgan Dey, one of the top teen Reducers at The Body Institute. Thanks to cutting-edge technology, Morgan can temporarily take over another girl's body, get her in shape, and then return to her own body-leaving her client slimmer, more toned, and feeling great. Only there are a few catches... For one, Morgan won't remember what happens in her "Loaner" body. Once she's done, she won't recall walks with her new friend Matt, conversations with the super-cute Reducer she's been text-flirting with, or the uneasy feeling she has that the director of The Body Institute is hiding something. Still, it's all worth it in the name of science. Until the glitches start... Suddenly, residual memories from her Loaner are cropping up in Morgan's mind. She's feeling less like herself and more like someone else. And when protests from an anti-Body Institute organization threaten her safety, she'll have to decide if being a Reducer is worth the cost of her body and soul...

The Body Institute

Promise City. That’s the colony I’ve been aiming for all my life on the planet Liberty. The only thing standing in my way? The Machine. On my eighteenth birthday, this mysterious, octopus-like device will scan my brain and Test my deeds. Good thing I’ve been focusing on being Jay Lawton, hard worker and rule follower, my whole life. Freedom is just beyond my fingertips. Or so I thought. Two weeks before my Testing with the Machine, I’ve stumbled upon a new reality. The truth. In a single sleepless night, everything I thought I knew about the adults in our colony changes. And the only one who’s totally on my side is the clever, beautiful rebel, Peyton. Together we have to convince the others to sabotage their Testings before it’s too late. Before the ceremonies are over and the hunting begins.

The Lying Planet

Bottled

In her run-down district, Taylen Hafferill is known as the “mech-whisperer.” Along with her ability to hear the thoughts of mechanical creatures and converse with them, she leads a ragged band of rebels who protest the heavy taxes imposed by the Gold Monarch.

In addition to the coin taxation, the Gold Monarch has decreed that words are to be taxed, plucked permanently from the commoner’s minds by spider-like mech-collectors. These taxes keep the people weak and under royal control.

At the palace, Lady Eliana of Noviston attempts to please her monarch father as well as protect the kingdom’s four lesser districts. Time and speed in this balancing act is crucial, however, for a grave, evil danger is fast approaching from the east—an Entity that will annihilate her people unless it is stopped. She discovers a key to its possible defeat, but the path to victory is far from clear, and she doesn’t have the power to do it alone.

Word Thieves 

For seventeen-year-old Lyndra of Biresk, her standing in the village has always been shaky. As a foundling abandoned by her mother long ago, she's not honored like her guild sister, a storyteller who creates magical images in the air with mere words. She's not respected like her beloved guild brother, Tonn, who never shirks his duties. With her keen sense of smell-an odd skill she keeps to herself-Lyndra struggles to balance her desires with obedience in her tightly controlled community. Her Guardian narhound sticks close by her side amidst a deadly sickness sweeping the village and ongoing unrest with the gilled people who dwell across the Grassy Sea. When the Grassians attack her village's fishing boats and abduct seven men, Lyndra's life begins to twist out of control. Soon a staggering secret causes her village to shun her. Determined to prove herself, Lyndra embarks on a dangerous journey into enemy territory, planning to rescue her abducted kinfolk and thwart the Grassian queen's dark plan to avenge the long-ago murder of the princess. But as Lyndra finds herself attracted to a charismatic warrior and experiences the exhilarating freedom of Grassian life, she realizes there are no clear choices along the way.

Carol Riggs

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