Shine

The plot of this gripping anti-utopian novel takes place in London in 2041. Behind it lies an economic depression, but fuel and housing crises have become the norm. In the 10–20s of the third millennium, people who had lost their homes and jobs shook London with protest rallies, uprisings, and riots. And to restore order in the city, the authorities began studying the genome of every resident—separating the obedient “Clean” from potentially mentally ill “residents.”

The rioters were always classified as mentally ill. It was believed they were in an active, most dangerous phase of the disease. They were forbidden to marry and have children. They were “treated” mercilessly—healthy people soon became dull, crippled. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies that produced “medicines for the crazy” quickly grew rich.

However, conscientious people didn’t disappear even in a life already ordered into Communities for the Clean and reservations for “the sick.” The children who came of age can’t come to terms with the fraud of powerful fathers and begin a struggle for justice, where the stake is their own life.

Young Anna horrifiedly learns that an error has slipped into the results of her “purity” test. Now not only her engagement to the same “Clean” Jasper is in question, but her very existence within the Community.

And fate prepares a new blow: Jasper mysteriously disappears from her life. Conducting her own investigation and trying to track down her fiancé, Anna ends up behind the walls of the Community and discovers the truth about the tests. And this truth may cost her her life.