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The Half-Life of Snails

by Philippa Holloway - £9.99  Parthian Books (2022)
paperback    ISBN 13: 9781914595523 | ISBN 10: 1914595521

A note from Parthian Books: "This novel is partly set in Ukraine circa 2014. The writer travelled to Ukraine and was made very welcome by lots of people in the course of her research work. We are supporting the Red Cross Appeal for Ukraine by donating all our profits from the sale of the book in the UK to the Ukraine appeal. Our intention is that whatever we raise will reflect in some small way the support the author had from people in Ukraine to enable her to tell her story."
 
Two sisters, two nuclear power stations, one child caught in the middle...
 
When Helen, a self-taught prepper and single mother, leaves her young son Jack with her sister for a few days so she can visit Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, they both know the situation will be tense. Helen opposes plans for a new power station on the coast of Anglesey that will take over the family’s farmland, and Jennifer works for the nuclear industry and welcomes the plans for the good of the economy.
 
But blood is thicker than heavy water, and both want to reconnect somehow, with Jack perhaps the key to a new understanding of one another. Yet while Helen is forced to face up to childhood traumas, and her worst fears regarding nuclear disaster, during a trip that sees her caught up in political violence and trapped in Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone during the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, Jennifer too must discover that even the smallest decision can have catastrophic and long-lasting effects, both within the nuclear industry, and within the home.
 
And Jack isn’t like other five-year olds... as they will both discover with devastating consequences.
 
The Half-life of Snails received a 2nd place prize in the Writers & Artists Working Class Writers Prize 2020.

(Price & availability last checked: November 2022)