The Waiting Place

The perfect girl. The teen delinquent. And the bland one. All dead and sharing an unlikely afterlife. Can they run from their demons while being chased by angels? 'The Good Place' meets a Tradwife TikTok account in this dizzyingly good YA novel about unlikely bonds, forbidden romance and trusting yourself when it really matters.

Sixteen-year-old Emily Woodward has lived her whole life in a tiny, high-control religious community. Some say it's a cult; Em was taught it's the only way to get to heaven on Halley's comet. She knows she'll be married off at eighteen, even if she secretly dreams of a life bigger than that.

Then the car crash happens.

In death, Emily is destined for the Good Line, but before she can be sorted, she sees her rebellious big sister sent to the Bad Line. Desperate to find a way to save her sister, Em agrees to run away from the angels with Jackson, the teen bank robber, and Xanthe, the most perfect girl in Em's community. But can she trust a clearly hell-bound bank robber? And is the perfect Xanthe just with them to snitch? The three teens find themselves in an afterlife that morphs into all the places they've waited in their lives, and for them to survive they need to take the actions they were too afraid to take when they were alive.

The Waiting Place is about judging people for what they do, not who they are, and it's for everyone who's ever been told they would not, could not, must not.