Red clocks - Leni Zumas

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INAUGURAL ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION

'Intense, beautifully crafted . . . Her talent is electric. Get ready for a shock' Guardian

This is a work of fiction. Keep telling yourself that.

America has changed. For women, it has changed for the worse.

Ro, a single high-school teacher, is desperate to become a mother. But with IVF now illegal - along with abortion and other reproductive rights - parenthood looks increasingly unlikely for her. Her best friend Susan is trapped in a failing marriage with two children, her star student Mattie is unwillingly pregnant and Gin, an outcast offering other women natural remedies, has become the centre of a modern-day witch-hunt.

With warmth, wit and ferocious inventiveness, Red Clocks shows us an all-too plausible near-future: like The Handmaid's Tale, it is a call to arms, set to become a modern classic.