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This is my first time posting here so please point out any etiquette mistakes I make :)

I am looking for help finding a trilogy I read some time ago. I can't seem to remember enough search terms to be able to locate it, though I hope someone on this site might be able to help.

What I remember:

  • There is a double headed farmhand named Neds who lives with the main character on her farm, hired after the female protagonists brother leaves (disappears? I can't remember)
  • The society is set up with different clans/groups labeled by color - purple, green, etc. I think each color is associated with a different occupation - religion, growing things and so on
  • The protagonist is head of the secretive brown "clan" made up of outcasts located all over
  • There is a secret tech filled bunker in their basement from where the protagonist (I wish I could remember her name!) runs the Brown "clan"
  • There is something called Dust associated with the end of the world event that led to the formation of the society?
  • The protagonist is actually held together with stitches - an apparently taboo thing that she has to keep hidden
  • Something happens and in one of the later books the main character ends up in a parallel universe
  • Her former personality was very different in that other universe and at one point, in an effort to stop the others from smothering her she threatens Neds by saying "I have matches and I know where you keep your smut"

I can remember other bits and pieces as well, but just not enough to be able to identify it. I really want to reread it so I hope someone can help!

Edit: More details after looking at the guide

  • I don't remember how new the book was when I first read it, but I did read it within the last few years.
  • Something about the writing style made me think of Brandon Sanderson, though that might just be my brain making random connections as nothing he has written matched this book.
  • The protagonist's origin story (for lack of a better term) is that the father was a scientist who had a body of a young girl in his lab who no one could figure out how to wake up. When his daughter had a fatal accident he tried to transfer her consciousness into that body, but when it awoke, it wasn't his daughter who had survived, but the original inhabitant. In the alternate universe (introduced in the 2nd or 3rd book) it was the daughter who had survived, the reason the others had so much issues with her new personality

I don't know how much sense the last bullet makes, the reason I didn't include it the first time, but I hope something in here strikes a chord with someone out there.

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  • Do you remember when you read it? Maybe when it may have been published? This guide may help you edit in some more details, but you're off to an excellent start!
    – Edlothiad
    Jan 20, 2018 at 23:50
  • Thank you! I'll do that now :)
    – Reader
    Jan 20, 2018 at 23:50
  • Wow, you must be the quickest response ever! I'm here hoping someone identifies your book!
    – Edlothiad
    Jan 20, 2018 at 23:51
  • Thank you so much! And I was looking through the other posts in the story ident tag, which is why I was able to respond so quickly
    – Reader
    Jan 20, 2018 at 23:58

1 Answer 1

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Could this possibly be the Broken Magic series by Devon Monk?

Googling "neds" two heads, I find this result from Stone Cold, the second book in the series, which has this quote:

"No," I said. "I didn't. This one doesn't have a brain to hit. Kind of like a certain farmhand I know." I pulled the knife out of the crocboar's skull and sank it into the thrashing creature's eye.
It lunged at me, its three-foot tusks and long snout lined with crocodile teeth slashing a little too close for comfort. Crocboars weren't very smart, but they had the teeth, claws, and tough skin to make up for it.
"Now you made it mad," Neds said.
[...]
Most people stared, eyes wide and mouths open, when they first met Neds. There was a good reason for it. Neds had two heads but only the one body, which was never the most normal sort of thing.

And then searching for "brown" in the book reveals this:

That, along with his dark breeches and military boots laced up and bucked up to his knees, have him a distinctly historical sort of look. Brown clothes meant he was non House; not owned by affiliated with any of the eleven Houses that ruled the modern world.

Those couple points match; I'm having trouble finding more information about the series online, but since that distinctive details about the two-headed character named Neds matches, I thought I'd give it a shot.


As @Valorum mentions in the comments, there's also the House Immortal series, in which indeed the characters are sown together - this is a quote from Infinity Bell:

At first we'd thought he'd been soaked in Shelley dust, a substance possessed by the heads of Houses and used as a means to control galvanized—people like Abraham, people like me, who were made of bits stitched together. Shelley dust on the skin would burn through the stitching.

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  • It is the House Immortal series! Thank you so much to both of you!
    – Reader
    Jan 21, 2018 at 0:13

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