Dreamland: An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021

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For fans of Children of Men, Years and Years & Station Eleven, a postcard from a future Britain thats closer than we think.

A beautiful book: thought-provoking, eerily prescient and very witty. Brit Bennett, author ofThe Vanishing Half

'Water courses through its pages, as rising sea levels heighten inequalities, buoy populist politicians and wash away every certainty of civilisation. But theres also the novels prose its liquid grace and glinting sparkle and the sheer irresistibility of a narrative that sweeps along with a force that feels tidal in its pull.'The Observer

''You said that you would come back. Youlooked me in the eye and said that.Well, if you had, this is what you wouldhave seen: soft wood, black cracks,fridges in the road. The broken spinesof old rides at Dreamland.'

In the coastal resort of Margate, hotels lie empty and sun-faded For Sale signs line the streets. The sea is higher its higher everywhere and those who can are moving inland. A young girl called Chance, however, is just arriving.

Chances family is one of many offered a cash grant to move out of London - and so she, her mother Jas and brother JD relocate to the seaside, just as the country edges towards vertiginous change.

In their new home, they find space and wide skies, a world away from the cramped bedsits theyve lived in up until now. But challenges swiftly mount. JDs business partner, Kole, has a violent, charismatic energy that whirlpools around him and threatens to draw in the whole family. And when Chance comes across Franky, a girl her age she has never seen before well-spoken and wearing sunscreen something catches in the air between them. Their fates are bound: a connection that is immediate, unshakeable, and, in a time when social divides have never cut sharper, dangerous.

Set in a future unsettlingly close to home, against a backdrop of soaring inequality and creeping political extremism, Rankin-Gee demonstrates, with cinematic pace and deep humanity, the enduring power of love and hope in a world spinning out of control.

'She vividly captures the balance between ferocity and vulnerability as the two girls explore their burgeoning desire; one minute theyre greedy for each other, the next theyre proceeding more gingerly. Theirs is a great first love, blazing bright and furious amid the poverty and the pain, the perfect counterweight thats needed to make the novel sing.Dreamlandbrings us face-to-face with much of what were on the threshold of losing; nevertheless, it manages to convince us that its characters have everything still to live for.'Guardian

'Agreat coming-of-age story, and a warning.'Evening Standard

This brutal read has moments of hope and love but also serves as a hideous warning to fight for whats rightDaily Mail

Brilliantly bleak this compelling novel is horribly plausible, chilling and feels like a warning thats come too late. Daily Mirror

'Chances life is filled with poverty, crime, drugs and fear until she meets Franky, a girl unlike anyone else she knows. Their relationship brings light and love...'Daily Express

'Rankin-Gees novel is a triumph, being as much a love letter to the heady ups and crashing lows of youthfulentanglements as it is a paean to the former grandeur of its stark coastal setting. Read this now.' GQ

'A writer of a new time A writer we will all want to read again and again.'Monique Roffey, author of the Costa Book of The YearThe Mermaid of Black Conch

Dazzling and shattering"Nell Dunn, author of Up The Junction and Talking to Women

'The writing clings like sand. Unexpected turns of phrase have burrowed deep into the recesses of my brain. She has created a vivid, textural portrait, teeming with life and granular, sensory detail as well as wisdom. It does what the most haunting of apocalyptic novels do, which is to shine a light on what is already happening around us and ask that we wake up.'Olivia Sudjic, author of Asylum Road

Entrancing A dark and devastating funhouse ride through curtailed innocence and apocalyptic experience. And- most uniquely- a love letter to the waning magic and melancholy of British seaside towns. It is itsown twist on the lucid dystopias of Diane Cook,Kirsten Roupenian and Emily St JohnMandel. The book is also deeply cinematic- I was reminded, throughout, of Terry Gilliam's waterlogged neo-noir fantasyTideland,as well as the dreamy realism of the films of Andrea Arnold and Lynne Ramsay.'Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti

'Rankin-Gee is a visionaryempath. Every page of this book both broke my heart and made me laugh out loud. What a feat!'Jac Jemc, author of The Grip of Itand False Bingo