Peng Shepherd, THE BOOK OF M author

Fictitious

Peng Shepherd is the author of THE BOOK OF M. This debut speculative fiction novel examines a near future world, fallen to an inexplicable epidemic called The Forgetting.

All around the world, people have lost their shadows, and soon after, their memories incurably erode as well. Society has collapsed as the Shadowless spread, and their Forgetting warps aspects of reality in alarming and unexplainable ways.

Hidden away at a secluded resort hotel, Ory and his wife, Max, have survived several years on scavenged scraps and fickle luck. But when Max’s shadow disappears, the couple are divided, racing across the dangerous urban wasteland — Max chasing her fleeing memories, Ory chasing his fleeing wife.

Meanwhile, the Olympic hopeful archer Naz shelters in Boston, on the verge of starving, separated by an ocean from her Iranian family, when she is drawn from hiding to traverse America — with only a bow and arrow to protect herself and a beloved companion.

Beyond them all is Patient RA, victim of an accident that left him with total retrograde amnesia, his memory wiped even before the Forgetting could steal it from him. After exposure to the first discovered shadowless, the Amnesiac — a man with a middle but no beginning — gains unique insight into the Forgetting and its true nature.

But as Naz, Ory, and Max’s paths spiral towards conflict and upheaval, what role will the Amnesiac play, as “the One Who Gathers”?

THE BOOK OF M is available now from William Morrow.