Great read! Looking forward to reading more by this author! Highly recommend!

Admittedly it was partly morbid fascination that drew me to this dystopian novel describing a future in which a tick infestation has driven humanity to barricade itself in a series of safe zones.. What kept me reading was a thrilling plot involving a group of (mostly) wealthy individuals on an extreme adventure trip that doesn't go as planned. Through chapters written from the view points of several different characters, the reader comes to sympathize with and understand the motivations of the people involved. While telling a story involving hostage taking, drug smuggling and the search for a solution to the bug problem, the novel raises the question of what we are willing to sacrifice for safety.

And you thought Lyme disease was bad! Somewhere in the perhaps not so distant future, the United States is only a shadow of its former self, a geographically smaller place where humans stay behind a “salt line” a place where humans are safe from ticks, who carry deadly disease. There is some semblance of normal life in this new place, but not all the residents are ruled by their fear about what lies beyond the borders. Some people like to push their luck by “jumping the line”, getting an adrenaline kick and a respite from the numbness of the world they now reside in. Among them are a small group, consisting of a housewife, former pop star, his girlfriend and a tech wiz, who find more than they bargained for when they venture outside the safe zone. Kidnapped by survivors who have created their own makeshift world called Ruby City, the group has to deal with both the deadly ticks and the survivors, either of which has the capacity to kill them all. A creepy, literate dystopian novel, that has a unique plot twist and enough thrills to please fans of the genre