Women in White ★★★☆☆

In a complex dual storyline, two groups of women fight for survival in a divided America which is suffering searing temperatures and has run out of fossil fuel.

For Rose, leaving the security of the Floating City where the wealthy shelter to work as a hostess and spy in the north is a necessary risk in order to secure her future and that of her mother’s. Can her benefactor be trusted? And what is she expected to find at Dominion Lake?

Meanwhile, a group of female scientists at a climate surveillance research station find themselves abandoned and manipulated by their government. Can they survive and create a new community?

A story of greed, subterfuge, and survival where women are either possessions or perpetrators and love and kindness is the greatest gamble of all.

I am quite partial to a novel set in the near future. (Although I tend to mix them up within a reading diet of historical and contemporaneous fiction.) Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling is clever. You never really know how far in the future the chapter you are reading is set, until all is revealed later in the book. I liked this!
While the book gives a very clear message about the impact of climate change on our world, it gives us much more than this. It is character and plot driven and is really well written. Although it is set in the future, it reflects the difficulty of being a women that is all too familiar today and when reading historical fiction. Despite this, there were some very strong women portrayed - both amongst the group of sex workers (the Blooms) and those working in a climate research station, White Alice. I liked them!
I will definitely be recommending this book as it ticks a lot of boxes. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to read and review it ahead of publication, via #NetGalley.

Frighteningly feasible, yet still interesting.
I normally don’t get too exited about all these doom laden books about a warming world, but this one was different. Why? A brilliant story, great characters, and plenty of twists along the way. The characters were many and varied, but all seemed quite real, even if they were hardly mentioned. The places involved were so well described that it was easy to imagine them. Yet, there were not long passages of description, so the world building was done with a seemingly light hand.
I was quite sad once the story ended, and wonder whether there will be a sequel, or was the story created so that we could imagine our own sequel? I’m not sure, but will definitely seek out any more books by this clever author.

Picture America in 2049. Climate change has resulted in skyrocketing temperatures, the fossil fuel industry has crashed and everyone is implanted with a computer at birth called a Flick, which allows them to access the internet with the flick of an eye, 24/7. A new city, called Floating City has been created off the coast, where the wealthy live in luxury, while those on the mainland struggle to survive.

Rose leaves her town on the mainland and gets a job as a hostess in a premier club in the Floating City, hoping for a better future for her and her mother. At a secret research station a group of women with the code name White Alice have been dropped off by the government to undertake a few years of climate surveillance. But their job doesn’t work out as they expect. Meanwhile at a former oil town in Canada an American idealist is working to build camp Zero. A beginning of a new way of life, with clear air and cooler temperatures. When Rose ends up in Camp Zero as a Bloom, she realises she is not the only one there with a hidden agenda. The cold is not the only danger around.

This was a bit of a slow burner for me at first. Once I got into it I was glad I stuck with it, as it is a very interesting take on how humanity can survive an impending global warming crisis. Where do we go, how do we cope, and do only the rich survive? There is a lot of character development, along with context development of the world as it is now, which you have to wrap your head around to fully get into the story. Once you do, you are pulled into the world of the Camp, the Blooms, White Alice and how it all connects and how humanity approaches impending doom.

*I received this copy from NetGalley for review, but all opinions are my own.

I found this initially a bit difficult to get into and actually put it down for a few weeks before having another crack. I am really glad I did return to it because it was a fascinating take on survival in a global warming crisis.
The initial parts of the story are a little disjointed- it takes some time for the reader to build a picture in their mind of the different places described but once the story gets into full swing you are pulled into the world of the Blooms and as things unfold and other places and characters are introduced everything comes together beautifully.

This book is brilliantly written and really unusual. The different strands tie together well and, for me, it was the perfect balance of page-turning pace paired with enough complexity to make it really memorable. I found it really readable and frighteningly prophetic. Loved it.

A gréât apocalypse novel that changes a little and the different threads are intelligently pulled together in a way you wouldn’t imagine. Very much recommend

A chilling (pun intended) look at a dystopian/post-apocalyptic world devastated by climate change where the elites live in luxury and the rest of humanity struggles to survive and/or serve the elites. Rose, a sex worker and dutiful daughter who wants to help her mother, travels to a Canadian settlement. Nearby there is another mysterious settlement of elite women soldiers. The world building feels frighteningly realistic and the story is suspenseful. I liked the ending and felt is struck the right note while leaving thing open to interpretation.

I have been more into dystopianesque books recently - which is no surprise with how the world is. I really enjoyed this, it was well-written with a compelling storyline and well-developed characters. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

I love dystopian books and was drawn to this one set in a post climate Emergency world by the setting
The spends a lot of time setting up the story so we learn about the way the world and particularly the North American continent has changed because of climate change with haves and have nots icing increasingly divided lives
The book for the most part has two parallel stories of camps set up in northern Canada with the story focusing mainly on the women who live in these one group as settlers and one as prostitutes .i found it increasingly frustrating that these groups were not meeting and that I didn’t know what relative time each story was set .Without giving spoilers this was eventually settled .my one criticism was that this all happened very fast in the last quarter of the book.
Setting any book in extreme cold climates adds a great degree of isolation which was keenly felt whilst reading
For myself I would have liked more character development we only really saw the superficial elements of what made each tick
There were sci fi elements in the description of futuristic self contained cities and with brain computer interlinks ( The flick) in the story both of which could have been developed further into stories of their own
I read an early copy on NetGalley Uk the book is published in the Uk on 30 th March 2023 by Two Worlds Books

Camp Zero is a strongly written book - it made me feel really uncomfortable, and presents a frighteningly plausible near future. I was constantly tugged along through the narrative, anxiously waiting to see what happened next. The book has a creeping and pervading sense of dread throughout, really ramping up from the midway point. I found myself convinced that there couldn't be a positive ending to this - and the optimism of the ending seemed a little shaky and uncertain after what proceeds it. None of the characters are particularly likeable - but this fits well with the mood of the story, and highlights that everyone is flawed.
An engaging but uncomfortable read.
3.5 rounded up to 4.