Signed
The Seclusion & The Chasm (two book series)
Signed 2-volume YA dystopian series, 2018-2022
The Seclusion (2018) and The Chasm (2022) by Jacqui Castle form a two-volume dystopian series set in a near-future United States that has withdrawn from the outside world behind vast physical and informational barriers. The novels follow young protagonists who begin to question the official narrative spun by an authoritarian governing body, uncovering evidence of a broader world deliberately erased from public memory. Themes of isolationism, environmental decline, and state-managed truth underpin both volumes, with the sequel exploring what lies beyond the borders of enclosed society. Together the novels form a contemporary example of post-2010 dystopian fiction, reflecting anxieties around borders, surveillance, and the manipulation of history and truth.
Signed set. This set of first printing trade paperback originals of both titles is signed by the author in each volume. Also laid in are two bookmarks, including a pre-publication bookmark featuring the working title The Walls Are Closing In.
Softcover. Paperback originals, First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. Oakland: Inkshares, 2018-2022. North Carolina Author Project winner (2018). #11421.
Near fine, unread set.
Signed set. This set of first printing trade paperback originals of both titles is signed by the author in each volume. Also laid in are two bookmarks, including a pre-publication bookmark featuring the working title The Walls Are Closing In.
Softcover. Paperback originals, First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. Oakland: Inkshares, 2018-2022. North Carolina Author Project winner (2018). #11421.
Near fine, unread set.
Additional Details
The Seclusion (2018) and The Chasm (2022) by Jacqui Castle form a two-volume Young Adult dystopian narrative set primarily in the year 2090, in a United States that has severed all international contact after the construction of the Northern and Southern Walls in 2030. Society is governed by an authoritarian body known as the Board, which maintains control through pervasive surveillance, suppression of what it calls "toxic history," and implanted monitoring technology. Protagonists Patch Collins and Rexx Moreno work within the Natural Resource Department, a position that gradually exposes them to the ecological decline and internal contradictions the general population never sees.
In The Seclusion, their disillusionment sparks with the discovery of a preserved vehicle containing books and maps from the pre-seclusion era, physical evidence contradicting the state's portrayal of the outside world as an uninhabitable wasteland. Investigating further, they uncover that the so-called quarantined zones, officially blamed on external threats, are the result of domestic industrial and environmental collapse. Isolationism here is not protection but concealment, a means of managing dwindling resources and suppressing truth
The Chasm expands the setting beyond the enclosed society, shifting toward the Canadian border and what actually exists beyond the Walls. Rather than resolving its conflict through violent overthrow, the series ends with an effort to restore access to suppressed information, turning the state's own surveillance infrastructure against it. The duology reflects contemporary concerns about border hardening, environmental precarity, and the fragility of historical memory when those in power control information.
In The Seclusion, their disillusionment sparks with the discovery of a preserved vehicle containing books and maps from the pre-seclusion era, physical evidence contradicting the state's portrayal of the outside world as an uninhabitable wasteland. Investigating further, they uncover that the so-called quarantined zones, officially blamed on external threats, are the result of domestic industrial and environmental collapse. Isolationism here is not protection but concealment, a means of managing dwindling resources and suppressing truth
The Chasm expands the setting beyond the enclosed society, shifting toward the Canadian border and what actually exists beyond the Walls. Rather than resolving its conflict through violent overthrow, the series ends with an effort to restore access to suppressed information, turning the state's own surveillance infrastructure against it. The duology reflects contemporary concerns about border hardening, environmental precarity, and the fragility of historical memory when those in power control information.