Not Alone

Five years after a toxic microplastics storm wiped out most of the population, Katie lives with her young son, Harry, in a one-bedroom flat. Going outside can kill, so Harry has never been past the front door. Katie forages and hunts the few animals still alive to keep him fed.

The world around them is shrinking. Bodies pile up, and poisonous dust hangs in the air and sinks into the soil, killing whatever still grows. Katie and Harry have gone years without seeing another person.

That ends when another survivor turns up, and the arrival terrifies them both. Katie decides she has to leave the flat, a journey she once thought impossible. She wants to find the man she was meant to marry and build a new life for her son.

This is a post-apocalyptic novel told close to a mother's fears and choices. Outside the flat, mother and child meet a dangerous, altered world, and the tension builds from the cramped, guarded routine of the early pages to the exposure of the road.