Astronaut!

'A

brilliant

and uniquely

energising

read . . . you will love this book!' -

Jennifer Croft

, translator of Olga Tokarczuk's

Flights

and author of

The Extinction of Irena Rey

'

Sharp

,

original

and completely

absorbing

.' -

Georgina Godwin

, broadcaster and literary journalist

~ ~ ~

Romania, 1989:

a grey place of mysterious queues, ubiquitous informers and daily news flashes about a

man-eating bear

that is terrorising the country.

Amidst the daily drudge of work, rationing and careful conversation with neighbours, two lives unexpectedly collide when an idealistic police detective,

Constantin

, is tasked with solving a string of grisly murders, and a rebellious school child,

Lia

, is unwittingly drawn into her elderly neighbour's seditious plot.

Dryly satirical, incredibly tense and deeply moving,

ASTRONAUT!

is both a detective novel and a coming-of-age tale, one with a perennially relevant message:

the lies we accept today become the truths of tomorrow.

Praise for the work of Oana Aristide:

'Achingly believable, unsensational and chilling'

- The Times

'A beautifully written, emotionally gripping book' -

Guardian