Author(s): Tina Shaw

NZ Fiction

"We were probably doomed from the moment the virus hit the airports..." - from the opening chapter of an insanely prescient new novel by Tina Shaw, written before the Covid-19 crisis.

After an international meltdown, New Zealand, along with the rest of the world, has shut down. No electricity, no broadband, and people are in survival mode - at least until somebody turns the lights on again.

Ruth has always led a sheltered life. Pre-Crash, she worked as an Ephemera Librarian, now she is managing a simple, self-sufficient lifestyle. But her sister is dying from tuberculosis and her love for Juliana propels Ruth to undertake a perilous journey.

She intrepidly sets off from Auckland to find the man known as Nelson and his rumoured stockpile of pharmaceutical drugs. Word has it he is based at the old Huka Lodge. Along with the handsome Lance Hinckley and enigmatic Adebowale Ackers, Ruth travels by steamboat up the Waikato River - the only practical way. The group journeys through settlements that have sprung up along the river as people try to re-establish their lives in this precarious time. With society itself broken, will Ruth manage to keep her commitment to her sister without compromising her own values?

Inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, this post-apocalyptic, partly comedic novel reveals that things are not always what they seem.