'The Lake District's answer to The Handmaid's Tale.' GuardianEngland is in a state of environmental and economic crisis. Under the repressive regime of The Authority, citizens have been herded into urban centres, and all women of child-bearing age fitted with contraceptive devices. A woman known as'Sister' leaves her oppressive marriage to join an isolated group of women in a remote northern farm at Carhullan, where she intends to become a rebel fighter. But can she follow their notion of freedom and what it means to fight for it?'At the vanguard of the new wave of futuristic dystopian literature . . . an accomplished, provocative novel.' Literary Review'Hall's fierce and shocking writing captures the cruel beauty of Cumbria.' Telegraph'A dystopian vision of a disturbingly near future in which the floods have risen and the oil has run out . . . entirely modern and brutally fresh.' Independent

Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974 and now lives and works there. Her first novel,Haweswater, was published by Faber in 2002. Her second,The Electric Michelangelo, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2004.