Dreamland cover art

Dreamland

An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021

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Dreamland

By: Rosa Rankin-Gee
Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
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About this listen

 SOON TO BE A MAJOR BBC DRAMA, The Dream Lands, starring Anna Friel, Connor Swindells, Clara Ruggard, Katerine Parkinson and Golda Rosheuvel

For fans of Children of Men, Years and Years & Station Eleven, a postcard from a future Britain that’s closer than we think.

An Evening Standard 'Best New Book'

‘A beautiful book: thought-provoking, eerily prescient and very witty.’ Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half

'Water courses through its pages, as rising sea levels heighten inequalities, buoy populist politicians and wash away every certainty of civilisation. But there’s also the novel’s prose – its liquid grace and glinting sparkle – and the sheer irresistibility of a narrative that sweeps along with a force that feels tidal in its pull.' The Observer

''You said that you would come back. You looked me in the eye and said that. Well, if you had, this is what you would have seen: soft wood, black cracks, fridges in the road. The broken spines of old rides at Dreamland.'

In the coastal resort of Margate, hotels lie empty and sun-faded ‘For Sale’ signs line the streets. The sea is higher – it’s higher everywhere – and those who can are moving inland. A young girl called Chance, however, is just arriving.

Chance’s family is one of many offered a cash grant to move out of London - and so she, her mother Jas and brother JD relocate to the seaside, just as the country edges towards vertiginous change.

In their new home, they find space and wide skies, a world away from the cramped bedsits they’ve lived in up until now. But challenges swiftly mount. JD’s business partner, Kole, has a violent, charismatic energy that whirlpools around him and threatens to draw in the whole family. And when Chance comes across Franky, a girl her age she has never seen before – well-spoken and wearing sunscreen – something catches in the air between them. Their fates are bound: a connection that is immediate, unshakeable, and, in a time when social divides have never cut sharper, dangerous.

Set in a future unsettlingly close to home, against a backdrop of soaring inequality and creeping political extremism, Rankin-Gee demonstrates, with cinematic pace and deep humanity, the enduring power of love and hope in a world spinning out of control. Dystopian Fantasy Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Suspense

Critic reviews

'She vividly captures the balance between ferocity and vulnerability as the two girls explore their burgeoning desire; one minute they’re greedy for each other, the next they’re proceeding more gingerly. Theirs is a great first love, blazing bright and furious amid the poverty and the pain, the perfect counterweight that’s needed to make the novel sing. Dreamland brings us face-to-face with much of what we’re on the threshold of losing; nevertheless, it manages to convince us that its characters have everything still to live for.'

‘This brutal read has moments of hope and love but also serves as a hideous warning to fight for what’s right’

‘Brilliantly bleak… this compelling novel is horribly plausible, chilling and feels like a warning that’s come too late.’
'Chance’s life is filled with poverty, crime, drugs and fear – until she meets Franky, a girl unlike anyone else she knows. Their relationship brings light and love...'

'Rankin-Gee’s novel is a triumph, being as much a love letter to the heady ups and crashing lows of youthful entanglements as it is a paean to the former grandeur of its stark coastal setting. Read this now.'

'A writer of a new time… A writer we will all want to read again and again.'

(Monique Roffey, author of the Costa Book of The Year The Mermaid of Black Conch)
“Dazzling and shattering"

(Nell Dunn, author of Up The Junction and Talking to Women)
'The writing clings like sand. Unexpected turns of phrase have burrowed deep into the recesses of my brain. She has created a vivid, textural portrait, teeming with life and granular, sensory detail as well as wisdom. It does what the most haunting of apocalyptic novels do, which is to shine a light on what is already happening around us and ask that we wake up.'

(Olivia Sudjic, author of Asylum Road)
‘Entrancing… A dark and devastating funhouse ride through curtailed innocence and apocalyptic experience. And- most uniquely- a love letter to the waning magic and melancholy of British seaside towns. It is its own twist on the lucid dystopias of Diane Cook, Kirsten Roupenian and Emily St John Mandel. The book is also deeply cinematic- I was reminded, throughout, of Terry Gilliam's waterlogged neo-noir fantasy Tideland, as well as the dreamy realism of the films of Andrea Arnold and Lynne Ramsay.'

(Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti)
'Rankin-Gee is a visionary empath. Every page of this book both broke my heart and made me laugh out loud. What a feat!' (Jac Jemc, author of The Grip of It and False Bingo)
All stars
Most relevant
This dystopian story is so full of love in amongst the hurt and trauma.
the characters became like friends.
scarily believable future.

Believable and Captivating. Dystopian story

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the premise of the book I really enjoyed but the story, characters and the way it was written was not for me.

not sure about this one

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Frightening, beautiful, gruesome and terrifyingly real. Dystopian fiction at its best. I read the novel when it came out, and loved it. The audio is brilliant. Kristin Atherton really brings the characters to life with great empathy. Chance and Davy, the feisty, resourceful and tough leads are two of my favourite characters in fiction. Love, friendship and loyalty in the grimmest of circumstances lie at the heart of this story.

Terrifyingly real dystopian fiction with love and loyalty at the heart of the story

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I dont often leave reviews but the narrators Roadman accent was SO irritating that it could have been the most fantastic story and I'd have hated it.

meh

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Never before have I read / listened to a book that touched me the way this book did. I laughed and cried in equal measure. The author created characters and settings that come to life. And the narration is absolutely spectacular.
I really hope there will be a follow up!

Incredible

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