The Emptying by Mimi Thebo

The Emptying by Mimi Thebo

The city is starving but the farms are bursting with food. Something is very wrong.

In the aftermath of a riot turned lethal, city-kid Acker goes looking for law and order. After a farm truck is attacked in the city, farmgirl Dot sets off to find answers. When the two teens meet, they find common ground and a terrifying truth about the future. Someone has to confront reality…what’s left of it.... And it looks like it's them.

In this dramatic, thought provoking, and prescient story Mimi and Rachel imagine a world where AI, initially  created to eradicate all human error, has gone disastrously wrong endangering the survival of the human race.

Mimi Thebo is a Carnegie-longlisted author for children and teens. Her work has been translated into twelve languages, adapted for a BAFTA-winning BBC film, illustrated in light and signed for deaf children by ITV. Born in the USA, she is based in Southwest England, where she is Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol and a Royal Literary Fellow.

Rachel Delahaye was born in Australia but has lived in the UK since she was six years old. She lives in Bath and is married with two children. Rachel’s earlier books for Troika, Day of the Whale (2022) Electric Life (2023) and Splinters (2024), have all been nominated for a Yoto Carnegie Medal for writing. Her most recent book for Troika, Electric Life: Surge, was published in 2025.