The Last Day

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HALF THE WORLD IS DARK. ONLY SHE CAN SAVE THE LIGHT. A high-concept, utterly original debut thriller which envisages a world on the edge of catastrophe, perfect for readers who loved Robert Harris' Fatherland, Station 11, and The Wall by John Lanchester. It is 2059: forty years previously a solar catastrophe began to slow our planet's rotation. Now it has stopped so that one side of the world permanently faces the sun while the other is stuck in an eternal frozen night. Britain is one of the few fortunate countries. Located in one of the few remaining temperate zones, it should have the means to support itself. In reality though it is struggling, and today it is a land stalked by hunger and violence. It is also home to the American Zone, the last surviving enclave of the United States. Ellen Hopper is a British scientist living on a frostbitten rig in the cold Atlantic. She wants nothing more to do with her country after its slide into authoritarianism and decay. Yet when two government officials arrive demanding she return to London to see her dying tutor, she accepts - and begins to unravel a secret that threatens not only the nation's fragile balance, but the future of the whole human race