The Last Day

DEBUT It has been 40 years since the Earth’s rotation slowed to a stop, plunging half of the planet’s population into permanent darkness, and half into endless day. Perched at the perfect halfway point, England exists in a continuing early morning, with enough sunlight to grow crops, but not so hot as to become unbearable. In those 40 years since the Slow, England’s government has brutally closed its borders, increased rationing, and conscripted any dissenters into slave labor. Scientist Ellen Hopper has spent the years since her divorce on a naval rig in the bitter Atlantic, studying currents and avoiding politics, when she is contacted by a former mentor, from his deathbed. Against her wishes, government officials coerce Hopper back to the mainland to say her goodbyes, in the process embroiling her in a mystery someone will go to any lengths to protect.