Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg
Pennsylvania-derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever. In this new
America safety for all depends on the work of a few and laws like the Native and Negro
Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.
Jane is studying to become an Attendant: trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the
well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all not even
being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society's
expectations. But that's not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss
Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore Jane is set on returning home. She doesn't pay much
mind to the politics of the eastern cities with their talk of returning America to the glory
of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing
Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy that finds her in a desperate fight for her life
against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead it would seem are the least of her
problems. At once provocative terrifying and darkly subversive Dread Nation is Justina
Ireland's stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar-a country on the brink at
the explosive crossroads where race humanity and survival meet.
