Not Alone

Not Alone kept me breathless with tension.' - Emma Donoghue, bestselling author of Room

'Intensely moving, genuinely gripping, plausible and absorbing' - Charlotte Mendelson, author of The Exhibitionist

In a world very close to our own, a mother and her young son desperately fend for themselves in the confinement of their one bedroom flat. Five years ago, a toxic microplastics storm killed most of the population. Now Katie must forage and hunt the few surviving animals for meat as she attempts to feed her little boy, to care for him as best she can. At a time when stepping outside could kill you, Harry is kept indoors at all costs, never venturing beyond the entrance to their building, never knowing the truth of how he came to call this place home. Bodies continue to build up around them, inescapable layers of toxic dust hang heavily in the air and Katie is only getting sicker. Then, after years without human contact, Katie and Harry are terrified by the arrival of another survivor and Katie knows she must finally undertake a previously unthinkable journey in search of the man she was supposed to marry. In search of a new life for her son.

Outside their safe haven, Katie and Harry encounter a world that is forever changed. There are new threats to their safety here, fellow survivors who are determined to start a new population, to save the world they so desperately misunderstood. Katie is pushed to unimaginable lengths as she pushes ahead in search of a better life and as Harry's safety wavers in the balance. As they travel further north, leaving their once safe haven so far behind them, Katie knows how much harder it will be to return if things go wrong.

In Not Alone, Sarah K. Jackson combines heart-stopping adventure, with a deeply felt and vividly imagined central bond between mother and child which transcends the world around them. This stunning debut is about love, trust, hope and the looming threat facing us all.

About the Author

Sarah Jackson is an ecologist specializing in botany, and has a keen interest in human–wildlife coexistence, conservation, climate change and microplastics pollution. Her job has taken her all around the UK, scrambling through woodland, paddling up rivers, squelching through mountain bogs and also sometimes overseas. She studied Psychology and Criminology at Cardiff University, before doing a Master’s in Conservation Ecology at Oxford Brookes University.