New Beginnings (MA Rothman) Books in Order

New Beginnings is one of Rothman's harder series to box neatly, and that is part of its charm. These books mix young-adult fantasy, thriller pacing, secret agencies, strange gifts, and old prophecies. They are tied together less by one single viewpoint character than by a shared mood, ordinary young people discovering that the world around them is much stranger, and more dangerous, than they had been told.

The leads all start from disruption.

In Running From Destiny, Jason Rogers loses his parents and is blamed by a shadowy government agency for the explosion that killed them. Anya, who should have been protected by the same hidden world, learns just how conditional that protection really is. In The Code Breaker, Jeremiah is already living with memory loss and an unnatural ability to hear thoughts before a dead KGB agent turns his life inside out. In Dispocalypse, Willow is trying to survive inside a harsh post-apocalyptic order when grief and unsettling dreams begin to crack open the truth of her world.

What links these books is the collision between modern control systems and older, deeper forces. Agencies watch, manipulate, and confine. Characters run, hide, and improvise. But underneath the chase plot there is usually something older at work, prophecy, destiny, buried history, or powers that do not fit neatly inside any official explanation. Rothman likes that overlap. He uses it to keep the stories moving in two directions at once, forward as thrillers, downward into mystery.

The tone is younger than in the Levi Yoder or Connor Sloane books, but the stakes are still real. These characters are not dabbling around the edges of danger. They are being hunted, used, lied to, or forced to grow up quickly in systems that would rather treat them as assets than people. That gives the series a strong coming-of-age thread even when the plot turns wild.

It is not a one-flavor fantasy sequence.

Some entries feel closer to runaway conspiracy fiction. Others lean into prophecy, telepathy, or dystopian survival. What stays consistent is Rothman's interest in capable young people under pressure, trying to work out who they are while the world insists on telling them what they are for.

If you like fantasy that still moves like a thriller, this series is worth a look. Expect secrets, pursuit, unusual powers, and a constant sense that the truth has been buried under many layers, and that pulling on any one thread may change everything.