"The definition of a single session read." --Eoin Colfer, bestselling author of Artemis Fowl For fans of Station Eleven and The Last of Us, an apocalyptic tale of a young woman fighting for life and justice in the tyrannical Phoenix City--the only place in Ireland yet to be overrun by the flesh-eating skrake

Outside the walls of Phoenix City, where the plague has overrun Ireland, one bite from the savage skrake means death or infection. Inside, Orpen and the other survivors of the plague gather in meager numbers. They are protected from the skrake, but the city is by no means a refuge.

Orpen is the only outsider ever admitted to the ranks of the banshees, the fierce, all-women force of fighters who push back the hungry skrake gathered at the city walls. Phoenix City is ruled with an oppressive hand--its best leaders power-hungry and ruthless--and the banshees keep the peace, or shatter it, depending on their orders.

But unrest is building in the city, and even some banshees question the cost of implementing the management's patriarchal rule. When two banshees are publicly executed, and a foraging trip beyond the walls goes bad, Orpen knows she must make a choice between survival within a cruel society or treacherous freedom beyond the walls. She will need to muster all her courage and prowess if she and her fellow banshees are going to be able to find a way to escape--and rebuild a society worth fighting for.