Cosy, hopeful and uplifting, this heartwarming post-apocalyptic romance is perfect for fans of Fable for the End of the World and Emily Henry.
Thirty years after the end of the world, a young woman enters into a marriage of convenience with a man she hardly knows so she can secure vital medical care for her beloved younger sister.
The world might not have ended all at once. But end it did.
Kayla Hollins is a survivor. Living in the fragmented wasteland of the Canadian Pacific Northwest, she's outlived a colony, a cult, a paramilitary group, and most of her family. So when her younger sister April falls seriously ill, Kayla will do anything to save her. They trek to Salt Spring Island, a beacon of hope in their otherwise brutalized world, which is rumoured to still have a hospital. But Salt Spring's utopia comes with a price. Not just anyone can enter paradise or access their medical care, and Kayla's past is chequered.
Desperate, Kayla makes a deal with Sid Charles, an aspiring politician with whom she had a chance encounter before arriving on Salt Spring. If Kayla and Sid get married, it will boost Sid's chances of election, and grant April automatic access to the medical treatment she desperately needs. And in two years, when Kayla is eligible for citizenship herself, they can get a divorce. Simple, right?
Sid is distant and cranky, but Kayla comes to learn he is also shockingly kind. The more time she spends with him and his ragtag group of rescued boys, the more she comes to admire him. But with April's treatment and Sid's election on the line-and the constant terror of her past being discovered-Kayla isn't sure she can risk trying to change their arrangement.
Trapped together in the closest thing left to paradise, Kayla and Sid both know what it means for the world to end. But as they try to rebuild with the people of Salt Spring Island, there may be time left to save-if not the world-themselves. Emily Paxman is an author and artist from Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. She's a huge fan of gardening, cats, watercolour painting, and several other hobbies that befit an octogenarian. She has her Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Chatham University, has written for indie video game company Wizard Games, and splits her time (unevenly) between creating comics and writing novels. You can read her webcomic, Neptune Bay, on Webtoon. Death on the Caldera is her debut novel.
Follow Emily on Bluesky: @emmypax.bsky.social; and on Instagram: @emmypaxman
