SATURNALIA

A young woman races through an alternate Philadelphia on a night of revelry in this bewitching sophomore novel.

Nina used to be a member of the Saturn Club, an elite social club with rumored interests in alchemy. But three years ago, she left it and her best friends behind to forge a path alone. She’s been able to make ends meet telling fortunes with her divination deck, but money is tight enough that when Max, the one friend she’s kept in touch with, offers her cash to sneak into the club on Saturnalia to steal a package from her ex-lover, she accepts. That this one-night mission comes with untold wonders and terrors is a surprise for Nina and a thrill for readers. Feldman conjures a near-future version of the U.S. entranced by mutual aid organizations–turned–secret societies and caught in a slow-burn environmental catastrophe that’s unsettlingly plausible, and her depiction of the aftermath of sexual assault is complicated in its rage and compassion. The novel’s pacing is electric, its worldbuilding seamless, and the magic that slowly reveals itself feels truly strange and captivating—a considerable feat. Only the slow unspooling of Nina’s backstory and the reason why she left the Saturn Club in the first place pose stumbling blocks to the reader; it’s hard to feel the desired shock of changing loyalties or the longing for healed relationships when the reader doesn’t have the full picture of one character’s ties to another.

A propulsive fantasy thriller about fortune-seeking at the end of the world that will leave you wanting more.