Published by Walden Pond Press

It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher—a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is little more than a tourist attraction.
Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr apartment house—until a real estate developer announces that the city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long-held by the people of New York. And if Tess, Theo and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.
From National Book Award Finalist Laura Ruby comes a visionary epic set in a New YorkCity at once familiar and wholly unexpected.
AMAZON |
BARNES & NOBLE |
BOOK DEPOSITORY

Laura Ruby writes fiction for adults, teens and children. She is the author of the newly-released YA novel BONE GAP, as well as the Edgar-nominated children’s mystery
LILY’S GHOSTS, the ALA Quick Pick for teens
GOOD GIRLS (2006), a collection of interconnected short stories about blended families for adults,
I’M NOT JULIA ROBERTS (2007), and the forthcoming middle-grade trilogy YORK. She is on the faculty of
Hamline University’s Masters in Writing for Children Program. She makes her home in the Chicago area.
Photo Credit: Stephen Metro
– 7 Winners will receive a Set Copy of YORK: THE SHADOW CIPHER by Laura Ruby
When I was a kid I flew to Expo in Vancouver with the Girl Guides!
I was maybe six years old. My Grandmother & I flew from Daytona Beach FL to St Louis MO on a red eye flight. I don’t remember it but my Grandmother said some man carried me off the plane, I was sound asleep.
Big trip! From Nashville, TN to Charlotte, NC.
I was a baby when I first rode a plane. It was with my parents and we went to their hometown, a province in one of the islands in the Philippines . I can not remember anything!
I think Chicago? I don’t really remember.
My first airplane ride ever was to Beaverton, Oregon to train at the Nike headquarters. I worked a hybrid position at Macy’s, where I was a rep for Nike clothing and worked in the Nike department, and it was pretty much the best job ever – free Nike shoes and clothes every month. Huge sigh, I miss that job 🙂
My very first flight when I was four years-old was a trip to the Philippines.
I’ve never been on an airplane.
A trip to Florida as a teenager.