The debut novel from Bethany Clift, Last One at the Party takes a classic sci-fi trope – the sole survivor at the end of the world – and strips it back to its core, delivering a powerful, emotional story of a regular woman in a recognisable world gone wrong. In a very near future, even the lessons learned from the Coronavirus pandemic are no use when a new, horrifyingly virulent virus ravages first America and then the rest of the world. There’s no hope for a cure, yet in London one woman – the nameless protagonist here – finds herself still alive in the ruins of her life, with everyone she ever knew now dead and gone. At first she loses herself in drink, drugs, raids on Harrods and the lingering luxuries still on offer in the city, but it’s not long before loneliness compels her to seek out other survivors or, failing that, some remaining reason to keep going.
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