Susan Cullen
2023 Word Award Winner for best YA fiction and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize finalist for best Speculative Fiction Debut. (The World Collective, CHP 2023)
Stories are how Susan Cullen makes sense of the world so it was only natural that she would turn to writing. After going off to university she spent a decade supply teaching, got married, and started a family of fellow book-lovers, fighting that crippling beast called self-doubt along the way. A lover of all four of Canada’s seasons, Susan lives in Chatham-Kent, cheering on her fellow NaNoWriMo writers, walking her pup, and collecting books.
BOOK ONE IN THE WORLD COLLECTIVE SERIES BY SUSAN CULLEN
WINNER OF THE 2023 WORD AWARD FOR BEST YA FICTION, SHORTLISTED FOR THE KOBO EMERGING WRITER AWARD FOR BEST DEBUT SPECULATIVE FICTION
When environmental disaster threatened to end all life on earth, humanity came together and created the World Collective. Using The Code, a computer program that tracks every detail, citizens live in harmony, each ensured a full life story with access to food, medicine, education, and meaningful work as part of the collective.
But what happens when The Code is hacked?
The last terrorist attack happened eight years ago. Ry was the only survivor. Now fourteen, she can’t help but notice everything is happening too fast, especially when she is activated for her vital role four years early.
A terrorist has tampered with the coding that controls vital roles and Ry has been assigned to the very team tasked with his capture. As Ry adapts to life as an adult in a new city and working to make new friends, she begins to see that more is at stake than a couple kids being forced to grow up too fast.
Because The Code controls every aspect of life…
And death.
BOOK TWO IN THE WORLD COLLECTIVE SERIES BY SUSAN CULLEN
The World Collective is crumbling. Change is stirring. It is time for the people to act, to come together as a United People.
Rygita did the impossible - she faced Thanatos and lived. Now, with the terrorist Tazib captured, life should be returning to normal.
Too bad things are never that simple.
Thanatos continues to kill and despite the World Collective’s efforts to keep the truth secret the increasing early deaths are taking a toll on the system. DATA needs more information if they hope to repair The Code. Ry is positive Tazib holds the answers but getting him to reveal them is a challenge.
With the world around her growing more and more complicated Ry must discern the truth from fantasy. The perfect music tells her there is a plan but how does that help her navigate her day-to-day life and relationships? And how do the United People factor in? Is the secret organization the key to ensuring a future for all?
BOOK THREE IN THE WORLD COLLECTIVE SERIES BY SUSAN CULLEN
All her life, Rygita was told it was impossible to live outside the World Collective, believing the rhetoric that there was nothing beyond the ordered cities except wasteland, chaos, and death. But this was a lie.
Hidden in the mountains, far away from the Code’s reach, Ry discovers the Uncounted. These multi-generational families have built a thriving community of free people, offering Ry, Tali, and Loren their first real chance at a normal life, and an opportunity to reclaim their childhood.
But time is running out. Thanatos remains unchecked, and the United People are closing in. Somewhere in Ry’s memory lies the key to everything, if only she can unlock it in time. With the future hanging in the balance, she’ll have to work with the one person she swore never to trust: Tazib.
From pulse-pounding pod chases to daring rescues, Ry will risk it all in this epic conclusion to The World Collective trilogy.
In a world where truth has been buried under layers of lies, perhaps the most powerful discovery is that hope’s song never truly fades — it just needs a willing heart to hear it.
The highly anticipated conclusion to The World Collective trilogy by Ontario author Susan Cullen arrives today, January 15, 2025. Uncounted completes the thought-provoking young adult dystopian series that earned Cullen recognition as a Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer finalist and Word Award winner.