When the Rain Came

By: Matthew Eicheldinger

Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2026-03-17

<b>The rain never stops. The world is drowning. Survival is everything. This is the first book in a new</b><b> gripping dystopian adventure series for young adult readers by <i>New York Times </i>bestselling author Matt Eicheldinger.</b><br> <br> <i>"If we stay here, if we keep wandering without a real plan, we won't last. Maybe The Hill is dangerous. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's the only plan we have."</i><br> <br> <br> Seventeen-year-old Aurora knows how to survive. Life in the foster system has taught her how to stay quiet, stay smart, and stay ready. But nothing could prepare her for <i>this</i>: a never-ending storm that swallows cities, drowns forests, and turns the world into a flooded wasteland.<br> <br> Trapped in a collapsing house with her strict prepper foster parents, Aurora is forced to live by their rules just to stay alive. Until the day they disappear without a trace.<br> <br> <b>Alone</b>. <b>Abandoned</b>. And <b>running out of time</b>.<br> <br> All Aurora has is a waterlogged scrap of paper and a name: "The Hill." With looters closing in and the floodwaters rising higher each day, she's left with <b>one impossible choice</b>--stay and wait for the storm to take her, or risk everything on a journey through the drowned remains of the world, to a find a place that may or not exist.<br> <br> It's forward or nothing.<br> <br> With echoes of <i>Life As We Knew It</i>, <i>The Last of Us</i>, and <i>Hatchet</i>, Aurora's story is a <b>gripping, emotionally resonant survival story</b> about <b>resilience, found family</b>, and <b>one girl's fight to reclaim her future in a drowning world.</b>