The Times Children's Book of the Year 2025

The trip to the cottage should have been a fun family weekend for thirteen-year-old Zay, despite another summer of extreme weather. At least, that’s what his father and stepmother had in mind when they planned the weekend getaway.

But that was before Zay’s older brother, Sam, decided to stay behind. Before Zay, Caleb, and Nia discovered their surroundings had inexplicably transformed overnight. Before they realized they were trapped inside a dome. And before the weekend turned into three long years.

If this were a game, Zay would know how to win it. But this is no game. There is no trace of their mysterious captors, no clue as to their motives, and no way to escape. The only rule is survival. Just when Zay and his family have all but given up hope, something new shows up in their strange habitat: another family.

The Jacksons are polar opposites of Zay’s family. Conservatives from Tennessee, they believe a government conspiracy is behind their strange abduction, and they’re willing to do just about anything to prove it and find a way out. Despite their family’s differences, Zay begins to fall for their daughter, Mackenzie. For the first time since their captivity, he begins to think he could be happy living inside the dome. But tensions rise as the Jacksons continue searching for a way out, and their actions trigger unexpected and dangerous consequences—for everyone.