Wake

It’s 2020, and there’s an environmental crisis brewing in the depths of the Greenland ice sheet that’s a threat to everyone on the planet. But California girl Camilla Brightly is an expat just trying to make a buck, working for a PR firm that specializes in raising public awareness about their clients’ products, even ones like eco-friendly bouncy castles and almost-vegan honey. Their most recent project? Everyone on staff has to get their “domestic helpmates”—anything from dishwashers to disco balls—networked via a new client’s “smart” home automation system. Camille doesn’t want Big Brother knowing that the only thing in her freezer is the makings for a vodka smoothie, but that’s not the worst of her problems. A hacker intent on taking down one of her firm’s customers stumbles across a secret Camilla didn’t even know she was keeping, and her refrigerator turns out to be so smart it’s figured out how to stalk her. Global warming has reached a tipping point—and so has Camilla. She can’t stop the impending apocalypse but can she save herself? With the help of an adorably nerdy co-worker and his polyamorous cousin, Camilla has to try to untangle herself from her less-than-harmonious home, foil a blackmailer, and face down an ecological disaster that might change life as she knows it forever. “Wake”—the prequel to “An Etiquette Guide to the End Times”—is a novel of climate change, unruly appliances, and finding a place to belong.