Synopsis:
Decades from now, two women sit around a fire on Beltane, May Eve, and reflect on their life stories.
Activist Lucy’s earliest memories are of living with her grandparents during the 2020 pandemic, and discovering her grandmother’s love of birds. Filmmaker Hester, born on the day of the Chornobyl explosion, visits the plant in 2021 to film its feral dog population, and encounters the wilded Exclusion Zone – and a wolf-dog.
Over half a century, their journeys take them from London to Balmoral to Somerset, through protests, family rifts, and personal tragedy. Lucy’s path leads to the fight to restore Britain’s depleted natural habitats and bring back the species who once shared the island, whilst Hester strives to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. Both dream of a time when there are wolves again.
Genre: Climate Fiction
Publisher: Arcadia Books
Pub Date: 9 October 2025
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher.
Review:
It’s 2070. Sitting around a Beltane fire, two women share the stories of their lives. Lucy was a ten-year-old in 2020, sent to live with her grandparents over lockdown, where she discovered what it means to love and care for the environment. Hester was in her 30s in Chernobyl, making a film about the vets who care for the wild dogs that roam the area. Both women go on to lead lives that revolve around and change the future of the environment in the UK.
I LOVED this book. If you are after a climate fiction with a hopeful note, this one is for you. Now, don’t take that as me saying this book is filled with sunshine and happiness, because it’s not. It very much shows us the disastrous realities of a changing climate. Unbearable heat that causes birds to drop dead from trees, lack of water, barren farmlands and flooding. It’s all here, and it’s written in such a way that it caused me to feel real fear in my body, because we all know that it could be just around the corner.
The hope in this book comes from our characters, Lucy and Hester. Lucy’s interest in the environment is nurtured by her grandparents until she becomes part of an activist movement to ‘recommon’ private land. Hester goes on to create films that show people working to preserve our environment. From each woman, threads unspool, connecting other people and movements, creating a whole community striving to fix the world.
Nothing is easily achieved here, and I love that Swift doesn’t shy away from showing how difficult it is to effect real change. Political groups, protestors on all sides, legal systems and even our own families all throw up barriers and hurdles. This is the reality that we are facing today, but through this book, we do get some hope that it can be done. If we are prepared to work for it, everyone has the capacity to change, if only we would work together and with the environment.
This is definitely my book of the year, and I highly recommend picking up a copy. Huge thank you to @Aracdia_books for sending a copy my way.
Pages of Emma 
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