BEST NEW SCIENCE FICTION OF APRIL 2025 BY NEW SCIENTIST Cloud Atlas meets This Is How You Lose the Time War in this gorgeous speculative novel that explores how a mysterious red journal connects three women born centuries apart in East London. In a silverware shop, a young wife works alongside her husband. Amid growing political turmoil, Bea finds solace in the local marsh, where she is visited recurrently by a mysterious presence, logging each appearance carefully in a scarlet journal. In a time like now, Kay navigates friendship, queerness and the temporary job market, whilst contemplating the significance of her life in a world with such an uncertain future. At her grandmother's house she finds an intriguing record of an angel's visits. A hundred years into the future, outsiders have banded together to live off-grid away from a corrupt government and a city wracked by oppression and climate change. When Ess is chosen for a virgin mission, a journey into the past to save the present, she is guided only by a well-thumbed red notebook... Set against the shifting scape of East London marshes and expanding over three centuries, this is the breathtaking, urgent story of three women separated by history but threaded together by unknown forces.