You're Safe Here
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Wellness, motherhood, and technology converge in a near future California, as three women’s seemingly innocuous decisions have further-reaching consequences than any of them could imagine in this timely, clever, and white-knuckled thriller that “is dystopia at its best” (Booklist).
In 2060, the WellPod is the latest launch from the largest tech company the world has ever seen—a fleet of floating personal paradises scattered throughout the Pacific Ocean, focused entirely on health, solitude, and relaxation. Created by an enigmatic founder who will stop at nothing to ensure her company’s success, it is the long-awaited pinnacle of wellness technology. For newly pregnant Maggie, the six-week program is the perfect chance to get away…especially since the baby isn’t her partner’s.
Noa Behar isn’t a perfect fiancée. She’s too distracted, too focused on her work in helping program the WellPod to give Maggie the attention she deserves. But when she discovers something rotten beneath WellPod’s shiny exterior—a history of faulty tech and dangerous cover-ups—she knows one thing: she’ll do whatever it takes to keep Maggie safe.
The problem? The malfunctioning WellPods are already at sea. And there’s a storm coming…
A fast-paced and compelling thriller, You’re Safe Here “serves up twists on twists on twists, building to an ending that no amount of AI-powered computing could ever hope to predict” (Nick Fuller Googins, author of The Great Transition).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Stephens's dramatic dystopian debut, set in 2060, fiancées Noa and Maggie each try to find their place in another woman's powerful wellness empire. WellCorp, the company run by tech and wellness guru Emmett Neal, provides at-home sanctuary "nests." Now, Emmett has extended her reach with WellPods, which float in the Pacific Ocean and provide their solo passengers with two months to "regroup in unencumbered isolation and then be, effectively, reborn." Maggie, a 25-year-old artist, was among the first to sign up for a WellPod voyage, hoping to find a way forward with Noa, a 38-year-old coder for WellCorp. The two were inseparable at first, but after Noa received a dream job at the company, they began to drift apart. Far away in the ocean, Maggie now enjoys her regimented days of AI therapy and machine-made meals, while back at WellCorp, Noa begins to doubt the integrity of the pods thanks to a damning magazine exposé, an approaching storm, and a culture of corporate secrecy. She fights to reunite with Maggie despite the pain each caused the other before Maggie's departure. Though the ending feels contrived, Stephens deserves praise for seamlessly interweaving a chilling tech dystopia, a corporate thriller, and a rocky romance. It's a heart-pumping ride.
