Bracken wrote her first unpublished novel during her freshman year at W&M, and began her debut novel, Brightly Woven, as a birthday present for her friend during her sophomore year when she was nineteen years old. In their review of the book, Publishers Weekly dubbed Bracken "a debut author to watch." Her debut placed third in the 2010 GoodReads Choice Awards for Best Debut Author. In 2012, Disney Hyperion published the near-future, Young Adult thriller The Darkest Minds, the first book in the series of the same name. The series focuses on Ruby, a 16-year-old girl with special abilities that she has only just begun to understand. She breaks out of a "rehabilitation camp" in which she has been imprisoned and teams up with a rag-tag group of fellow camp escapees to find the Slip Kid, a leader who offers shelter to young people in danger and who possesses the secret to control one's powers. The title of the first novel and the series was changed from Black is the Color to The Darkest Minds in November 2011. In October 2013, the second installment of The Darkest Minds series, Never Fade released. This book continues to follow the main character Ruby as she learns to control her abilities, reunite with her friends, and fight back against the government that wants to imprison them. In October 2014, the conclusion to the series, In the Afterlight was released. As they fight for a place in the world, Ruby and her friends formulate a plan to rescue the children trapped in the so-called rehabilitation camps. Film rights for the series were optioned by Twentieth Century Fox with Shawn Levy to produce under his 21 Laps banner in 2011. On November 13, 2014, it was announced that Bracken had been tapped to write Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farmboy, a novelization of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Bracken replaces R.J. Palacio, author of Wonder, who had been slated to write this novelization but had to drop out due to a scheduling conflict. In January 2016, Bracken's book Passenger was released. It debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestsellers list. In January 2017, the sequel to Passenger, Wayfarer, was released. This book continues the story of Etta and Nicholas. Now robbed of the powerful object that was the only hope to save her mother, Etta is stranded again, cut off from Nicholas, the one she loves and natural time. Etta stumbles into the heart of the Thorns, renegade travelers who stole the astrolabe from her, she vows to destroy it once and for all. Etta must choose a path, that could transform her future. Nicholas is still devastated by Etta's disappearance, he enlists help to track her and the astrolabe down. As they travel to change the timeline, they discover the ancient power that threatens to eradicate the timeline altogether. This book travels through time and concludes the Passenger series. Like Passenger,Wayfarer debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestsellers list.
