Broken Cistern (Idols Series)
Every teenager is thirsty. The question is where they will go to drink. Broken Cisterns follows six students at a Christian school in the Phoenix area, each digging a well of their own making: followers and likes, a scoreboard, a perfect report card, a first love, a bank balance, and a mirror. Each promises to satisfy. Each cracks.
Tessa Vance chases a follower count. Micah Delgado lives for the buzzer. Naomi Trask measures her worth in straight A's that her father laminates. Gabe Ortiz gives his whole heart to a girl. Jada Monroe guards every dollar in a coffee can. Jonah Abbott measures himself against a door. Running through every story is Mr. Alvarez, the Bible teacher in Room 214 with the "World's Okayest Theologian" mug, who keeps pointing these students back to the Spring they keep walking away from.
Each book follows a single character through eight chapters of temptation, collapse, confession, restitution, and grace, with a Scripture verse opening every chapter. The tone is honest and warm, never preachy. Sin has real consequences, and forgiveness is real too.
Teens who read this series will recognize their own thirst, learn to name the idols that promise relief, and discover the One who offers living water freely. Each book stands alone, so readers may begin anywhere, though those who read them all will enjoy the friendships and cameos that connect them.
Tessa Vance chases a follower count. Micah Delgado lives for the buzzer. Naomi Trask measures her worth in straight A's that her father laminates. Gabe Ortiz gives his whole heart to a girl. Jada Monroe guards every dollar in a coffee can. Jonah Abbott measures himself against a door. Running through every story is Mr. Alvarez, the Bible teacher in Room 214 with the "World's Okayest Theologian" mug, who keeps pointing these students back to the Spring they keep walking away from.
Each book follows a single character through eight chapters of temptation, collapse, confession, restitution, and grace, with a Scripture verse opening every chapter. The tone is honest and warm, never preachy. Sin has real consequences, and forgiveness is real too.
Teens who read this series will recognize their own thirst, learn to name the idols that promise relief, and discover the One who offers living water freely. Each book stands alone, so readers may begin anywhere, though those who read them all will enjoy the friendships and cameos that connect them.
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BOOK 1:
Counterfeit gods (followers) Tessa Vance has 4,212 followers and checks the number before she even gets out of bed. When her best friend Lena breaks down praying in chapel, Tessa secretly films it, and the video explodes online on the same evening Lena's parents tell her they are divorcing. Taken with her family to her Aunt Ruth's 80th-birthday weekend in the mountain town of Pine, where there is almost no signal, Tessa must face what she has done and who she has been performing for. Counterfeit Gods is a story about being seen, being known, and drinking from a spring that never runs dry. |
BOOK 2:
The Scoreboard (sports) Micah Delgado keeps every stat he has ever scored in a composition book, and after a fifty-foot buzzer-beater in front of a scout and his father, he can think of nothing else. But the glow only lasts as long as the horn. As Micah shoots to reach his number, he begins to play at his teammates instead of with them, straining his friendship with Dre Coleman and earning a benching from his coach. When one drive tears his ACL and costs him his season and his scholarship hopes, Micah must learn who he is when nobody is keeping score. |
BOOK 3:
The Report Card (grades) Naomi Trask, a 16-year-old junior, checks her grades at 5:29 every morning. Her father laminates each report card and hangs it on the refrigerator, and she has never earned less than an A. Then a 91 arrives, exhaustion sets in, and a friend hands her something she should never have seen. Naomi's story is about the quiet, exhausting cost of trying to earn love and what it means to rest in a grace that cannot be earned. |
BOOK 4:
The Crush (romance) Gabe Ortiz replays one four-second memory over and over: the moment Sienna Vale turned and laughed. He changes his playlist, his clothes, and his friendships to be worthy of her, and when she says yes, he thinks his thirst is finally over. His grandfather, who irrigates an orange grove, tries to tell him the difference between a ditch and a river. The Crush is a tender, honest story of first love, heartbreak, and being chosen by Someone who will never leave. |
BOOK 5:
The Cash (money) Jada Monroe was eleven when she saw the white paper on her family's front door the day they lost their house, and she swore she would never stand on that step again. Now a 16-year-old sophomore, she resells sneakers, checks her savings, her app, and her coffee can, and has a ten-thousand-dollar goal. When a shady dealer offers a shortcut, Jada's fear starts making decisions for her. The Bottom Line is a gripping story about security, honesty, restitution, and learning to pray for daily bread. |
BOOK 6:
The Measure (image) Jonah Abbott measures himself on his bedroom door every morning and finds himself short. When a senior's video promises "same guy, nothing changed but the work," Jonah begins lifting, editing his photos, and posting under a fake name, and a fourteen-year-old boy starts following him. His little sister, born with a cleft lip, wants only for him to look at her. The Measure is a compassionate story about the lies of the mirror and the truth of being loved before doing anything at all. |