Excerpt from These Heathens by Mia McKenzie, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I got up off my knees and sat down on the bed. I thought about God's will. I thought about my own. And I decided.

I have to get rid of it.

I was sure of that, though I didn't know why I was so sure. Truth is, my certainty surprised me, because I feared God and all the ways he might punish me for even thinking such a sinful thing. But deep in my soul, I knew I had to do it.

I hadn't been back inside Burgess Landrum since I left it two years before, but it hadn't changed. I went straight to Room 107, stood outside the classroom door, and peeked in through the glass pane. I knew most of the students, since almost all of them lived in Millen. Ours was a town of only about thirty-­five hundred people. I'd gone to school with these kids all my life. From the doorway, I could see my cousin Ernestine sitting in the front row, and my best friend, Lena, staring all dreamy out the window. Marvin, who we called Pervin, because he was always trying to look up some girl's skirt, sat in the back with his legs stretched out into the aisle, like he owned the place.

Excerpted from These Heathens by Mia McKenzie. Copyright © 2025 by Mia McKenzie. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.