About the Book

Book: All That Glows Author: Lauren Smyth Genre: YA Dystopian Science Fiction Release Date: May 12, 2026

The apocalypse didn’t take everyone. It just took us. Ever since the rain turned green, Kyrie’s world has been bathed in glowing dust. She packs it into old mascara tubes and sells it as makeup alongside dried cacti, threadbare blankets, and long-expired canned food. There’s not much else to do when everyone outside Kyrie’s small town in the Mojave Desert died from the plague-bearing rain ten years ago. Everyone—except the man in the rubber mask. He’s on the dangerous side of the fence, huffing infected air like it’s nothing, babbling to Kyrie about college and umbrellas and yogurt and everything else that disappeared the day it rained. He doesn’t seem to know that the world ended, and he has no explanation for how he survived the apocalypse. But Kyrie doesn’t believe in ghosts. She can’t trust him, but he’s right about one thing: Towns without secrets aren’t surrounded by chain-link fences. And chain-link fences won’t keep out the plague forever.

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About the Author

Lauren Smyth is an economics journalist at World News Group. Since signing her first publishing contract at age thirteen, she has written five young adult novels, coded two narrative video games, and started a blog enjoyed by readers and writers around the world. When she’s not in the broadcast studio, you’ll find her crafting episodes of her Grammar Minute writing podcast or training for her next trail run.

More from Lauren

You’d think the apocalypse already happened in Mojave, CA. Toxic dust could invade your lungs and kill you. Owls burrowed in the ground for lack of trees. Bobcats mated and had their kittens on neighborhood roofs, and every so often, a jet screamed overhead with a thunderclap in its wake. I arrived in the middle of the night, and when I woke up, I was in a world different from any I had ever known. As a military kid, I had eaten fresh Belgian waffles, stood drenched in Ohio rain, and fallen asleep to Las Vegas lights. But I had never seen a place so unearthly, or so tantalizingly mysterious, as Edwards Air Force Base. I stood at the window and goggled at the scenery for a while. And then I began to make it my own. One of the first things Edwards AFB taught me was how to write. That was a byproduct of my decision, at a mature eight years old, to become a detective. My friends and I climbed into a ditch and found a broken arrow, half the feathers ripped away, the point still intact. An assassination attempt, of course. Old golf balls buried in the dirt—secret messages to a dangerous enemy. The allure of jets overhead, of opaque military acronyms, of drab camouflage and deadly temperatures and rumors of drug lords and cowboys and sand sharks wandering the desert, gave wings to our imaginations. The first story I wrote was a collection of “clues” we’d gathered, an attempt to frame them all into a narrative that explained how the base was going to be attacked and how we—well-prepared with our military IDs and iPods—would save everyone. I started writing in a notebook with a hot pink cover, and a hundred more notebooks kept up the thread. The story wasn’t yet a book. But it was my first attempt at weaving a story greater than anything I had experienced. Fourteen years have passed. All That Glows is my fifth book. It’s based on everything that came before it—most importantly, on Mojave and Edwards AFB and all the time I spent trying to tease out the desert’s mystery. It captures what I felt when I was there: small, under the broad desert sky and the huge airplanes; large, compared to the tarantulas that scuttled past my boots in the dust; melancholy, when I thought of how far away the rest of the world was; determined and thrilled, as I dove into the adventure I was living and the ones I hadn’t lived yet. In All That Glows, you’ll poke your finger on cacti needles and get your shoes tangled in grabby creosote. You’ll experience the blazing daytime heat, the tumbleweeds, the bland architecture, and the rest of Edwards AFB’s unusual scenery, all set in fictional towns. You’ll count the desert stars and shiver in the cold twilight wind. You’ll have a mystery of your own to solve, and if you can stick it out to the end, you’ll have befriended a dry-humored, scrappy cast of characters. Here’s the first line from one of those old notebooks: “When can we go outside, Mom?” And here’s the first paragraph of All That Glows: “On the night the world ended, raindrops stained our roof tiles green. I was the first to notice when I went outside to dump the dishwater.” A lot has changed, but the sense of adventure Mojave taught me hasn’t. If anything, since then, the mystery from back then has only heightened. Maybe the golf balls weren’t a secret message, but maybe a new kind of missile was tested while I was there. Maybe the broken arrow was just a kid playing in his backyard, but maybe one of those jets flew faster than sound seven times over. I won’t ever know. I only have my memories. But I can imagine the battles and the sacrifice and the bravery. And so, if you’ll join me for this expedition, I’ll show you what my mind’s eye saw when I looked out across the desert.

Interview with the Author

If a reader were to ask you what author you are like, what would you answer?

It depends on how bold I’m feeling that day. I’m sure most of the time I would duck my head and say I don’t know. But one of the writers who endorsed my fourth book, Warsafe, said it read like a modern Isaac Asimov novel. Whenever I have a bad day, that comment pops into my head and brings a silly grin to my face. Asimov is one of my favorite science fiction authors, so to have even one person think I’m in the running is a tremendous honor.

What is your favorite book and why?

When I hear this question, I always imagine I’m stuck on a desert island and can only read the same book over and over for the rest of time. In that case, I’d probably pick something crazy long so I don’t get bored. I think I could spend many years marveling at and trying to unravel The Will of the Many, a Roman(ish) fantasy novel by James Islington. I first read that book on my Kindle and didn’t even notice it was 650 pages long—I was so thoroughly gripped.

But if I had to pick the book that most influenced how I write, it would probably be Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. I read it for a writing class in college, and I was struck by how simply the author describes the war he writes about. He economizes words, but the reader doesn’t feel any less involved with the action. When Orwell is shot—and lives—his tight language puts the reader right into the pain, shock, and distress with him. I’ve always tried to do the same with my writing, and that class gave me plenty of practice.

What is one thing readers would be surprised to learn about you?

I think readers (who don’t follow my Instagram or subscribe to my newsletter) might be surprised to know that I’m a restless person. I’m a professional writer, a journalist when not a novelist, which means I’m staring at my computer for much of the day. But when I’m done, I’m done—with the desk, the blue light, and the indoors. Balance is key. I exercise my mind, so I have to exercise my body, too.

I can’t sit still for long. I stand in the back of work meetings. Sometimes, in college, I would stand in the back of class. It’s not just that I fidget—it’s also that I tore up my knee skiing a few years ago, and since then, if I stay seated for too long, my leg starts to ache, and my knee will lock up in a bent position. That’s a pretty good motivator for me to get my steps in!

I added regular exercise into my routine when I was in college. Sophomore year, I was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when I happened to look up at the window. The sun was cutting across a field of grass and shining on the lake beyond. It was all I could do not to jump up and run outside right then, although the assignment was far from finished and I was on a tight deadline. That moment, which is still perfectly clear in my mind, led me to realize that many of the adventures I wanted to go on required basic physical fitness. And that got me into running. Now, whenever someone invites me along to try some activity, I can confidently say “yes.”

What inspired you to write this book?

All That Glows is set in the Mojave Desert, a weird little corner of the planet where I lived at about age 8. There’s an Air Force base out there where jets land on the dry, sandy lakebeds, and where Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.

Something about this place exudes mystery. Maybe it’s the fact that you have to stay inside when the wind blows because the dust contains toxic spores that can kill you. Or maybe it’s the fact that you can’t pet the kittens because they’re not kittens at all—they’re mountain lions that will mate and have litters on your roof. Or maybe it’s the owls that burrow in the ground, since there aren’t any trees. Everything in Mojave is backwards and upside down, and most of it is trying to kill you. When you’re young with a big imagination, it’s a delightful place to grow up.

My friends and I used to pretend—somewhat seriously, and quite pretentiously—that the military base was under attack, and we would be the ones to solve the mystery and save the base. This book is a distant, well-developed, standalone offshoot of that childhood fantasy.

Share with me a few of your favorite things.

Running—specifically, completing a tough trail race and then raiding the fridge. (Bonus points if there’s chocolate milk.) Writing or reading in the evening with rain pattering on the roof. Making it to the top of a climbing wall. Paddleboarding and “accidentally” falling into the lake on a hot summer day. Hikes and picnics with friends. Sunshine that warms you all the way to your bones. Swimming against the current in the ocean. Meeting someone new and instantly knowing the friendship will last. Starting off on a long road trip with good snacks, good music, and good company. Snuggling with my cats in front of a fire when it’s cold out. Anything and everything that makes me marvel at the beauty and artistic eye of my Creator.