by Khan Wong
First published 2025
Maida Chao works for the Golden Gate Cultural Recovery Project in 2106, where climate change has reshaped the world and a cosmic event called the Bloom has given some people psionic abilities. Maida can read the history of any object she touches through psychometry. When she accidentally discovers a political plot to eliminate all psychic individuals like herself, she faces a deadly threat. Her investigation leads her to an antique teacup that connects her mind to two of her distant relatives across time. She experiences the life of Ethan Chao, a corporate designer seeking meaning in 2006, and Li Nuan, an indentured servant trapped in a Chinatown brothel in 1906. The psychic bond with her ancestors grows stronger, and Maida realizes she can send messages backward through time using the teacup as a conduit. She must warn them about the coming environmental collapse while finding a way to save her own life from those who want to destroy people with her abilities.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, 21st-century, climate-change
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, time-travel
Setting: Chinatown, Golden Gate, San Francisco
Period: 1906, 2006, 2106
384 pages · Paperback · Angry Robot