Light at the End of the World: A Novel

Children of Men meets The Matrix is this gripping new thriller about mortality, AI, and the value of human relationships, by the critically acclaimed author of The Last One.

Wendy Smith is a typical forty-two-year-old American living in London. She resides in a small apartment and walks through London’s parks and avenues each day. This is where normality ends. The streets are deserted and overgrown. She rarely sees another living soul. There are no shops, cars, or buses. Almost everyone stays indoors. Most are living and thriving in a whole other realm known as The Other Place. A virtual reality version of the world made by sentient AI, Matrona, to ensure humans wouldn’t irrevocably wreck the planet.

Wendy is one of a handful of Londoners who shun this VR alternative. She roams the eerie, untamed streets for likeminded people, desperate to build friendships, find love, make genuine connections. She makes friends with a rag-tag group of resisters—a watchmaker, a dandy, a mudlark, a gardener, and one shy, attractive cellist—frequenting London’s last café (on Frith Street).

Soon they start to disappear, and Wendy reluctantly finds herself visiting The Other Place more and more. But when Wendy’s lover is abducted, she must roam the deserted streets alone to embark upon a horrific journey of discovery and uncover secrets which shock her to her very core.