First published 2014
Fan works as a fish-tank diver in B-Mor, once called Baltimore. Her settlement sits behind high walls, populated by descendants of Chinese immigrants who fled environmental collapse. The residents grow perfect produce and fish for elite charter villages that ring their colony. When the man Fan loves vanishes without explanation, she abandons the safety of B-Mor to find him. Her search takes her through the Open Counties, lawless territories where government control has crumbled and violence rules. She travels toward a distant charter village, following any trace of her missing lover. The people of B-Mor watch her journey from afar, turning her quest into the stuff of legend. Fan moves between worlds that barely recognize each other, from the ordered labor of her home to the chaos of the counties to the privilege of the charter settlements. Her search becomes more than a love story as she navigates the rigid class system that divides this future America.
Genres: dystopia, adventure, 21st-century, alternate-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Baltimore, B-Mor, Open Counties
Period: Future
407 pages · Hardcover · Riverhead Books