In a post-apocalyptic matriarchy that has erased men, a young novitiate faces a crisis of faith when her best friend begins receiving mysterious visions of an archangel—and must choose between the faith that shaped her and the forbidden longings that could destroy it.
The year is 2171, and the Earth is not what it once was. After climate collapse, plague, fascism, artificial intelligence, and nuclear fallout reduced civilization to ash, nature has reclaimed the Earth. Small monastic communities have emerged from the carnage—self-sufficient, female-only religious utopias governed by a strict codex and surrounded by walls to keep the wilds at bay. The new world is harmonious, and blissfully free from structures of oppression such as hierarchy, capitalism, and time.
Seventeen-year-old Igraine has never known life beyond the cloistered walls of the Field or seen a human male. Brilliant and devout, she spends her days in the gardens and scriptorium beside her closest companion, Ophelia. Their studies will culminate in twin posts at the Lunar Abbey—a gothic cathedral on the Moon reserved for the most venerated Sisters.
Their futures fracture when Ophelia begins receiving visions of a mysterious, alluring, and damningly masculine archangel. As the girls contend with cryptic fragments of revelation and devastating rumors about the Order’s darker origins, their bond becomes precarious and Igraine must confront her unraveling faith in a system that demands her complete surrender.
Praise
“All the Beastly Things is an ethereal, richly imagined, and sublimely written meditation on devotion, like a breathless prayer from a dystopian future. Eilish Quin’s elegant, emotive prose glistens as if crafted from the light of moons and stars." —Luke Dumas, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing Tastes as Good
“After transporting readers to Ancient Greece, Eilish Quin turns their brilliant eye to a not-so-distant post-apocalyptic future in their stunning second novel All The Beastly Things. Set inside a convent unlike any you’ve ever seen, the story follows Igraine, a young initiate training to ascend to a lunar abbey, while she discovers the matriarchal monastic order that raised her might be harboring dark secrets.
Quin’s lyrical prose and meticulous world-building seized me from the very first page. As we’re constantly bombarded with news of actual technocrats’ hubris and cruelty, the future depicted in All the Beastly Things feels less like fiction and more like Quin has a crystal ball at their disposal. Her masterful ability to escalate tension made the novel impossible to put down until I reached its stunning conclusion. Igraine has stayed with me ever since; I imagine she will for quite some time. Incredibly timely and deeply poignant, All The Beastly Things ultimately asks us what it means to be human.“ —Shannon Ives, author of Those Fatal Flowers
"Quin has conducted a master class on worldbuilding in this novel...An enthralling Sapphic SF tale as well as a well-drawn metaphor for the shock of growing up.” —Kirkus Reviews