All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.

Nebula Award, Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist and Hugo and Locus Award winner Ray Nayler returns with a gripping technological thriller.

'A fast-paced dystopian thriller' - SFX Magazine

'First-rate science fiction' - Cory Doctorow

'As much a novel of ideas as it is a techno-thriller . . . A more erudite and emotionally engaging Philip K Dick' - Irish Times

In a familiar yet different Europe governed by AI, life is more efficient, objective, and peaceful. Yet all is not as it seems. Meanwhile, at Europe's eastern edge, the Federation endures under the rule of a President who has preserved his power by transferring his consciousness from body to body.

As both worlds begin to crumble, Lilia, a Federation scientist, discovers a way to slip the nets of surveillance and alter the balance of power. On the run, she becomes the reluctant centre of a struggle between resistance and control. Yet the systems and people surrounding her may already be beyond redemption. Is there any way to put humanity's future back in its own hands?

‘A beautiful, perfect, moving read’ – Cecelia Ahern, author of PS, I Love You

The outstanding novel from the Carnegie Medal-winning, former Laureate na nÓg Sarah Crossan; thought-provoking and moving, it explores love and family during The Great Hunger.

Ireland, 1846. Nell is working as a scullery maid in the kitchen of the Big House. Once she loved school and books and dreaming. But there's not much choice of work when the land grows food that rots in the earth. Now she is scrubbing, peeling, washing, sweeping for Sir Philip Wicken, the man who owns her home, her family's land, their crops, everything. His dogs are always well fed, even as famine sets in.

Upstairs in the Big House, where Nell is forbidden to enter, is Johnny Browning, newly arrived from England: the young nephew who will one day inherit it all. And as hunger and disease run rampant all around them, a spark of life and hope catches light when Nell and Johnny find each other.

This is a love story, and the story of a people being torn apart. This is a powerful and unforgettable novel from the phenomenally talented Sarah Crossan.

‘A beautifully written, tightly observed novel’ - The Times

'Unmissable' - Daily Mail

‘Irresistibly emotive’ – The Sunday Times

‘Thrums with longing, beauty, loss and strength’ – Katya Balen, author of October, October