All the Beastly Things: A Novel

Summary

In a post-apocalyptic matriarchy that has erased men, a young novitiate faces a crisis of faith when her best friend begins receiving mysterious visions of an archangel—and must choose between the faith that shaped her and the forbidden longings that could destroy it.

The year is 2171, and the Earth is not what it once was. After climate collapse, plague, fascism, artificial intelligence, and nuclear fallout reduced civilization to ash, nature has reclaimed the Earth. Small monastic communities have emerged from the carnage—self-sufficient, female-only religious utopias governed by a strict codex and surrounded by walls to keep the wilds at bay. The new world is harmonious, and blissfully free from structures of oppression such as hierarchy, capitalism, and time.

Seventeen-year-old Igraine has never known life beyond the cloistered walls of the Field or seen a human male. Brilliant and devout, she spends her days in the gardens and scriptorium beside her closest companion, Ophelia. Their studies will culminate in twin posts at the Lunar Abbey—a gothic cathedral on the Moon reserved for the most venerated Sisters.

Their futures fracture when Ophelia begins receiving visions of a mysterious, alluring, and damningly masculine archangel. As the girls contend with cryptic fragments of revelation and devastating rumors about the Order’s darker origins, their bond becomes precarious and Igraine must confront her unraveling faith in a system that demands her complete surrender.