When the Rain Came - by Matthew Eicheldinger (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The rain never stops. The world is drowning. Survival is everything. When the Rain Came is the first YA book in an all-new, action-packed dystopian adventure series by New York Times bestselling author Matt Eicheldinger.

A #8 Publishers Weekly Bestseller!

"If we stay here, if we keep wandering without a real plan, we won't last. Maybe The Hill is dangerous. But maybe it's not. It's the only plan we have."

Seventeen-year-old Aurora knows how to survive. Life in the foster system has taught her how to stay quiet, stay smart, and stay ready. But nothing could prepare her for this: a never-ending storm that swallows cities, drowns forests, and turns the world into a flooded wasteland.

Trapped in a collapsing house with her strict prepper foster parents, Aurora is forced to live by their rules just to stay alive. Until the day they disappear without a trace.

Alone. Abandoned. And running out of time.

All Aurora has is a waterlogged scrap of paper and a name: "The Hill."

With looters closing in and the floodwaters rising higher each day, she's left with one impossible choice--stay and wait for the storm to take her, or risk everything on a journey through the drowned remains of the world, to a find a place that may or not exist.

It's forward or nothing.

With echoes of Life As We Knew It, The Last of Us, and Hatchet, Aurora's story is a gripping, emotionally resonant survival story about resilience, found family, and one girl's fight to reclaim her future in a drowning world.

Review Quotes

Fans of Soyoung Park's Snowglobe and Virginia Bergin's The Rain will find much to admire in this timely and unsettling exploration of belonging in a world literally and morally underwater."
(School Library Journal)

This gripping climate fiction is the first in a new trilogy that fits alongside classics of the survival genre like Paulsen's Hatchet and Sedgwick's Floodland (2000) as neatly as it does newer choices such as Shusterman's Dry (2018) and Oppel's Bloom (2020).
(Booklist)

"This fast-paced novel with dystopian elements will keep readers invested in its action-packed plot. A reoccurring mystery that's hinted at throughout the narrative leaves ample room for the sequel that's sure to be in high demand... A well-plotted survival series opener."
(Kirkus Reviews)

"Like Dry by Neal and Jordan Shusterman and Tilt by Emma Pattee, When the Rain Came is taut and terrifying. Fans of dystopian fiction won't be able to put it down."
(Megan E. Freeman, New York Times bestselling author of AWAY and ALONE)

About the Author

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Matt Eicheldinger wasn't always a writer. He spent most of his childhood playing soccer, reading comics, and trying his best to stay out of trouble. Matt lives in Bloomington, Minnesota with his wife and two children, and tries to create new adventures with them whenever possible. When he's not writing, you can find him telling students stories in the classroom or trail running along the Minnesota River Bottoms.