Promotional Information

The compulsive and timely new thriller from the author of the Richard and Judy bestseller The Shining Girls and the prize-winning Zoo City about a woman fighting to save her son.

About the Author

Lauren Beukes is the award-winning and internationally best-selling author of The Shining Girls, which has been adapted by AppleTV+, as well as Zoo City, Moxyland, Broken Monsters, and Afterland. Her novels have been published in twenty-four countries, and she's also a screenwriter, comics writer, journalist and award-winning documentary maker. She lives in London with two trouble cats and her daughter.

Reviews

A smartly written thriller that opens with a satisfying bang . . . splendid
*New York Times*

Powerful and intelligent, with some unexpectedly trenchant humour, this welcome addition to the no-longer-so-speculative pandemic subgenre has plenty to say about grief, love, family ties and gender roles
*Guardian*

Bowstring-taut, visceral, and incredibly timely: Beukes's plague-tale is a parable about the glory and terror of Americanism in times of calamity
*Cory Doctorow, author of Walkaway and Little Brother*

Lauren Beukes is a writer with a startling imagination, and a masterful ability to rewrite the rules of whatever genre she turns to; and now, right on time, she has turned to dystopian plague
*Ben Winters, author of Underground Airlines and Golden State*

Five years in writing, this intelligent speculative novel about a pandemic feels alarmingly close to home
*Metro*

You can't imagine how quickly the world can change in six months - there probably isn't a more resonant sentence to be found in any other novel published this year. A fast-moving thriller [that] splices gut-punching action sequences and feminist gender politics with an impressively light touch. Bubbles with big ideas. This intelligent speculative novel about a pandemic feels alarmingly close to home
*Metro*

Afterland is that rare creature, a ripping tale that neither shies away from big questions nor interesting answers
*New Scientist*

Teases out the deep familial currents that run through its relationships, explores gender and reminds us that dystopian fiction can be seriously grown-up entertainment
*SFX*

Afterland could not be more timely or terrifying . . . An excellent example of the prophetic nature of speculative fiction. Lauren Beukes is one of the most innovative and provocative writers on the contemporary scene
*Scotland on Sunday*

(A) timely thriller
*i paper*

Perfect lockdown reading
*Herald*

Praise for Lauren Beukes
*-*

Unreservedly recommended
*Joe Hill*

Brilliant ... engrossing ... I will be looking forward to whatever Lauren Beukes does next. She's a major, major talent
*A Song of Ice and Fire*

Scary as hell and hypnotic. I couldn't put it down
*Stephen King*

I'm all over it
*Gone Girl*

Utterly original, beautifully written, and I must say, it creeped the holy bejasus out of me. This is something special
*Tana French*

Masterful. Lauren Beukes is very *very* good
*William Gibson*

A new kind of thriller. A dark, relentless, time-twisting, page-turning. It shines
*Matt Haig*