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For fans of Emma Cline and Emily St. John Mandel, Westward Women is a hypnotic and hopeful debut―part fever dream, part dystopian road trip.
Each on the edge of transformation. Drawn toward the unknown. In search of a way forward.
It starts with an itch.
In homes across the country, women ages eighteen to thirty-five begin to slow down.
Tired. Blank. Restless.
Drawn to the Pacific Ocean like it's calling them home. They abandon their lives―jobs, families, their very selves. And once they reach the West, they vanish forever.
At the center of the story are three young women caught in the pull of something unstoppable.
Aimee follows the trail of her missing best friend to a man called the Piper―known for leading infected women West.
Teenie, afflicted and unraveling, clings to a single memory as she looks out the window of the Piper's van.
And Eve, a former journalist, is chasing the story that might just consume her.
"Impressive. The propulsive plot culminates in a shocking twist. Readers will revel in this layered and mysterious tale." —Publishers Weekly
"Martin uses this intriguing premise to explore such heady topics as ingrained misogyny, societal expectations, and how women's yearnings and ambitions often end up in opposition to both. A promising, beguiling first outing." —Booklist
"This taut and shocking debut is part Western, part zombie thriller, and all cautionary tale about what happens when women's bodies and desires are marginalized for too long. With twists you won't see coming, Martin weaves an alternate history that's only too relevant today." ―Anna North, New York Times bestselling author of Outlawed
"A dazzlingly skilled novel. Clever and insidious, it gets under your skin like a virus and doesn't leave until the last page." ―Dana Schwartz, New York Times bestselling author of Anatomy: A Love Story
This information about Westward Women was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alice Martin holds a PhD in Literature from Rutgers University. She is an Assistant Professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, where she teaches fiction writing and American literature. She lives outside of Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, her son, and too many typewriters. Westward Women is her debut novel.
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