Launch of FATHOM FALL - Matteo Cerilli (with Paul Coccia)

The Maze Runner meets Fortnite in this action-packed young YA about a boy who finds out the monsters from his favorite video game are real.
They came for our water, but they'll settle for your blood.
On Fathom Fall's leaderboard, player Wyatt “DoctorDoctor” Docherty ranks at number three. In real life, he's seen only as the privileged kid of head engineers at Hydrexo, the company that supplies 75% of North America's water. He has easy access while others must line up to pay exorbitant prices at public water taps, and he feels totally useless.
To prove he's more than a spoiled Water Baby, Wyatt wants to win the upcoming Fathom Fall competition and finally make a name for himself. But when he starts seeing Bluddites – the water-guzzling monsters from the game – in real life, Wyatt suspects that the tournament is about more than just prize money.
Wyatt wants to win, but as the tournament approaches, he starts to worry: Why won't anyone tell them what's really going on? Why would the game – the military, even – be training kids to hunt monsters for them? And how far is he willing to go to prove himself?
Set in a near-future, water-scarce Toronto, Fathom Fall is a high-octane speculative thrill ride that questions the ethics of new technology and how it defines our very reality.

Matteo L. Cerilli (he/him) is a trans masc author specializing in speculative fiction for all ages. His work features the YA horror LOCKJAW; middle grade ghost story SOMETHING'S UP WITH ARLO; YA noir BAD IN THE BLOOD; young teen gamer thriller FATHOM FALL; a featured short story in BURY YOUR GAYS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF TRAGIC QUEER HORROR; and poetry in Augur magazine. He currently lives in Toronto with his fiance.

Paul Coccia is the author of the young-adult novels Recommended Reading, which received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews; Leon Levels Up, which was a JLG pick, a CCBC Best Book for Kids and Teens pick and included on the 2024 Kid Committee Summer Red Maple Reading List; I Got You Babe, a CCBC BBKT starred selection and included on the 2024 Kid Committee Summer Red Maple Reading List; On the Line (co-written with Eric Walters), which won the Richard Allen Chase Memorial Award, was a Canadian Children's Book Centre 2022 starred pick, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Red Maple; The Player, which was a 2021 Red Maple Summer Reading List selection, and Cub, which was a JLG selection and a Canadian Children's Book Centre's Best Book of 2019, and the 2024 release I Got You Babe. Paul has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Despite writing books about hockey and basketball, Paul cannot skate and nearly broke his nose trying to spin a basketball on his finger. But he can bake and does know a fair bit about Cher. He lives with his parrot and three dogs in Toronto.

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