Excerpt from The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'It was a bomb,' the driver told him. 'You know, an atom bomb, from the Americans. Destroyed everything. All one night. Boom.'

Valery looked up. 'This damage is too widespread for a bomb.'

'Why are the houses burnt, then?'

'I don't know,' he said unhappily. On the right, a blasted church soared by, scraps of gold still winking on its broken domes. Beyond it was an old brick factory, the rafters poking through the roof like ribs.

'I'm telling you. Bomb.' The driver made a bomb noise and opened his hand to sketch a mushroom cloud. 'Yup. We're coming into proper rust country now.'

Valery wondered what that meant.

Excerpted from The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley. Copyright © 2022 by Natasha Pulley. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.