Sharon Heath

After a series of climate calamities, physicist Fleur Robins takes off for deep space in a desperate attempt to save the species from extinction. During her mysteriously prolonged absence, the internet has crashed, fire and flood have devastated whole countries, and End of Times cults have proliferated. There have been some intriguingly hopeful changes, too-nanoparticle holograms have replaced electronic devices, young people are witnessing exquisitely colorful "Shimmers," and the most gifted of them converse regularly with animals and trees. While Fleur's distraught husband Adam leads their Caltech physics team in frantic efforts to pinpoint her whereabouts, and Fleur herself plots her return home, their teenaged children Callay and Wolf fall in love with surprising partners. But when the charming son of an End of Times pastor crosses Wolf's path during a particularly vibrant Shimmer, events are set in motion that will upend everyone's life and transform planet Earth itself.This latest installment of Sharon Heath's saga of the quirky Nobelist Fleur is simultaneously a vision of what awaits us in a post-Covid world, a wild romp through quantum reality, and a deep sea dive into the dark and light vagaries of the human heart.

After a series of climate calamities, physicist Fleur Robins takes off for deep space in a desperate attempt to save the species from extinction. During her mysteriously prolonged absence, the internet has crashed, fire and flood have devastated whole countries, and End of Times cults have proliferated. There have been some intriguingly hopeful changes, too-nanoparticle holograms have replaced electronic devices, young people are witnessing exquisitely colorful "Shimmers," and the most gifted of them converse regularly with animals and trees. While Fleur's distraught husband Adam leads their Caltech physics team in frantic efforts to pinpoint her whereabouts, and Fleur herself plots her return home, their teenaged children Callay and Wolf fall in love with surprising partners. But when the charming son of an End of Times pastor crosses Wolf's path during a particularly vibrant Shimmer, events are set in motion that will upend everyone's life and transform planet Earth itself.This latest installment of Sharon Heath's saga of the quirky Nobelist Fleur is simultaneously a vision of what awaits us in a post-Covid world, a wild romp through quantum reality, and a deep sea dive into the dark and light vagaries of the human heart.

How do you maintain your balance in a world turned upside down? Buffeted by dire winds of climate change, Nobel scientist and odd duck extraordinaire Fleur Robins rides rough waves of sexual betrayal and gender fluidity, bullying and loss, as she and her physics team speed up their efforts to ensure a viable future for the world's children-including her own. Thanks to her fascination with the void; a vivid imagination; a loving, if eccentric, extended family; and a couple of dogs named Hot Sauce and Good Time Charlie, she finds her way to surprising new ground.

Few of the eccentric inhabitants of her father's Main Line, Philadelphia estate have much time for Fleur Robins, an awkward child with a devotion to her ailing grandfather, a penchant for flapping and whirling, and a preoccupation with God and the void. While her mother spends much of her time with her hand curled around a wine glass and her abusive father congratulates himself for rescuing babies from "the devil abortionists," Fleur mourns the fallen petals of a rose and savors the patterns of light rippling across the pool. When she fails to save a baby bird abandoned in her garden, a series of events unfold that change everything. For one thing, her handsome new tutor Adam Manus sees her unusual potential and introduces her to Nobel Prize winner Stanley H. Fiske, who brings her out to Caltech to mentor her in quantum physics. Fleur puts her preoccupation with the void to good use, making discoveries that promise to ease humanity's dependency on fossil fuels. But for all her brilliance, she is still a young girl, losing her virginity in a moment of naivet and learning the hard way to value the irreplaceable gift of friendship.

Everyone expected big things from Ariel Thompkins. Wasn't she the girl who'd roped her friends into one madcap adventure after another, who'd met the challenge of losing both parents before turning eighteen, who'd gone on to graduate summa cum laude from UCLA? So how did this livewire end up delivering the day's mail for the U.S. Postal Service, hunkering down each night with her half-blind cat in front of the TV, ruminating over the width of her thighs? It looked as though it would take a miracle to get her out of her rut.Who knew that miracle would come in the form of an acutely candid best friend and a motley crew of strangers--a homeless drunk once aptly nicknamed "Nosy," a lonely old woman seeing catastrophe around every corner, a shy teenager fleeing sexual abuse, a handsome young transplant from the Midwest with a passion for acting and for Ariel herself? Not to mention the fossil remains of a flat-faced crone who just might have been the ancestress of everyone alive today?Chasing Eve takes us on a funny, sad, hair-raising adventure into the underbelly of the City of Angels, where society's invisible people make a difference to themselves and to others, and where love sometimes actually saves the day.

Everyone expected big things from Ariel Thompkins. Wasn't she the girl who'd roped her friends into one madcap adventure after another, who'd met the challenge of losing both parents before turning eighteen, who'd gone on to graduate summa cum laude from UCLA? So how did this livewire end up delivering the day's mail for the U.S. Postal Service, hunkering down each night with her half-blind cat in front of the TV, ruminating over the width of her thighs? It looked as though it would take a miracle to get her out of her rut.Who knew that miracle would come in the form of an acutely candid best friend and a motley crew of strangers--a homeless drunk once aptly nicknamed "Nosy," a lonely old woman seeing catastrophe around every corner, a shy teenager fleeing sexual abuse, a handsome young transplant from the Midwest with a passion for acting and for Ariel herself? Not to mention the fossil remains of a flat-faced crone who just might have been the ancestress of everyone alive today?Chasing Eve takes us on a funny, sad, hair-raising adventure into the underbelly of the City of Angels, where society's invisible people make a difference to themselves and to others, and where love sometimes actually saves the day.

How do you maintain your balance in a world turned upside down? With dire winds of climate change at her back, Nobel scientist and odd duck extraordinaire Fleur Robins rides rough waves of sexual betrayal and gender fluidity, bullying and loss, as she and her physics team speed up their efforts to ensure a viable future for the world's children--including her own. Thanks to her fascination with the void; a vivid imagination; a loving, if eccentric, extended family; and a couple of dogs named Hot Sauce and Good Time Charlie, she finds her way to surprising new ground.