The Memory of Animals

From the Costa Award-winning, Women's Prize-shortlisted author of Unsettled Ground: 'a stunning piece of speculative fiction' (The i)

Humans are useless at learning from their mistakes. We just have to keep making new plans.

When Neffy wakes up from an uneasy sleep in a hospital bed, nothing is as it should be. There is no food, and nobody to tend to her. The city streets outside her window have fallen silent. She doesn’t know it yet, but a debilitating new virus is sweeping the globe, and the world will never be the same again.

Feverish, confused, and wary of the strangers trapped inside with her, Neffy finds solace in her own memories of the past – even the memories of the mistakes that led her here.

But as the days turn into weeks, it is clear that Neffy will have to make a choice. How do you choose between a past that has already disappeared forever, and a future you can't begin to imagine?