Foundling Fathers

In this zany sci-fi satire from Elison (Number One Fan), readers meet four teens—Ben, Tom, George, and John—raised in isolation on an island off the coast of Virginia in what they believe to be 1750. Schooled in Ptolemy, Christian morality, manners, and marksmanship, these “brothers” are being groomed to be statesmen. Only their “mother”—whose real name is Dr. Mary Himmel—knows the year is really 2026 and that the boys, clones of the founding fathers, exist as part of a cockamamie plan funded by the Antediluvian Society to restore America to greatness. Once the boys come of age, they’ll be introduced to the mainland. This scheme hits a few snags, first in Tom’s affairs with two of the servants, then when Ben discovers Mother’s phone in the bathroom, leading the boys to question their origins. As the Antediluvians initiate the Saratoga Protocol, a supposedly foolproof plan to transition the foursome to the real world, the teens prove to have minds of their own. Elison has a lot of fun with historicity and her characters are all finely wrought, especially Himmel, whose care for the boys as their surrogate mother butts up against her involvement in the Antediluvian cause. It’s a clever mash-up of American history and modern politics that will have readers both laughing and squirming. (June)