Pirate Patty Reviews

In modern, beautiful Green City, the capital of South West Asia, gender selection, war and disease have brought the ratio of men to women to alarmingly low levels. The government uses terror and technology to control its people, and women must take multiple husbands to have children as quickly as possible.

Sound familiar? From Pakistan author Bina Shah comes this look at a dystopian world where men have ruined everything with war and now the women must pay the price. Much like The Handmaid’s Tale, the women are secluded. They are here to re-populate the world. And that is all. The women are repressed, treated like breeding stock and must take multiple husbands and keep on giving birth.

It is a patriarchal society and women have no rights.

But in every repressive regime, there are those women who just aren’t going to follow meekly in line. They don’t want to be a part of this system. And one woman has found a way out. And her niece will assume responsibility for all of the group next.

These women live underground and are secretly protected by a man at the highest levels of this new regime in Green City. They only come out at night and provide some of the wealthiest men with the one thing they can not buy. Comfort and intimacy without sex. They are like ghosts in the night. Always safely home come morning.

Until one morning one of them doesn’t come home and the entire community will be changed.

I don’t normally like dystopian novels, but the characters in this book were so engaging. And the story told so well, that I am looking forward to the next one!

Netgalley/ Delphinium August 7, 2018