Fragile: A Novel
About this ebook
A Homeland Security agent tasked with keeping New York City alive falls for a woman determined to protect its most vulnerable creatures in this striking fiction debut.
New York in 2057—a metropolis divided. Sheltered by seawalls, privileged Manhattan is green, clean, and thriving while Brooklyn and Queens have been given up to the rising Atlantic.
Shavir knows she will be charged as a terrorist should she ever get caught, but she thinks of herself as a barista, a community farmer, and an underground activist fighting for the forgotten and the discarded. Her heart beats for the people on the sprawling rooftop farm she has helped build in broken Brooklyn, a big bubbly dog called Sam, and all the other animals she pulls out of cages at night. The last thing she needs is to fall for a Homeland Security guy.
Jake works for Homeland because he’s brilliant at securing critical medical drugs for New York in a world running out of everything. Haunted by the loss of his family at the age of 12, he is a sensitive man with too much amphetamine in his blood who can't afford to care for anyone, least of all a woman who is keeping secrets from him. His view of whose lives must be saved and who can be sacrificed is challenged when Shavir takes him across the East River to the people he was ordered to ignore. Soon, they both start to question the fragile truths they built their lives upon.
FRAGILE is a gripping thriller, an intricate look into our future, and a moving story of hope and commitment against all odds. Marvelously immersive and eerily realistic, it is an unflinching examination of our need for love and connection in times of social and environmental crisis.
About the author
Alexa Weik von Mossner is an award-winning novelist, scriptwriter, and film scholar. She holds a PhD in Literature from UC San Diego and is currently an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria. On the fiction side, she has penned over 160 episodes of the German TV drama series FABRIXX. Her short fiction has appeared in American literary magazines such as Orca, Delmarva Review, and The Dillydoun Review. Fragile is her first novel.