The Declaration by Gemma Malley

Imagine a world where, aged 16, you must choose between living forever and having a child.  Gemma Malley has created that place, where the cure for death has been invented and the world’s population must be controlled by the tyranny of the old.

Anna Covey is a ‘Surplus’. She should not have been born. In a society in which ageing is no longer feared, and death is no longer an inevitability, children are an abomination.

Like all Surpluses, Anna is living in a Surplus Hall and learning how to make amends for the selfish act her parents committed in having her. She is quietly accepting of her fate until, one day, a new inmate arrives. Anna’s life is thrown into chaos. But is she brave enough to believe this mysterious boy?

A tense and utterly compelling story about a society behind a wall, and the way in which two young people seize the chance to break free.