The Thinning

An eclipse is coming, and with it, a young woman’s one chance to save the world, in this gripping speculative environmental thriller

"Stunningly wrought . . . The Thinning moves with the compressed momentum of a thriller toward a spectacular climax." ―Guardian

"Heart-racing . . . [An] emotive tour de force." ―Australian Women’s Weekly

"A spine-tingling literary thriller that will keep you racing to the end. The Thinning blurs the lines between animal, human, and adaptation, and provides a gripping glimpse of our possible future through a fascinating astrological lens. An emotional tribute to the natural world. Moving. Urgent. Beautifully written."
―Karen Viggers, author of The Orchardist’s Daughter

FIN GREW UP BY AN OBSERVATORY, learning about telescopes and planets, inspired by the passions of her mother and father, then leaders in their fields of astrophotography and astronomy. Those days are long over. Now Fin lives deep off the grid with a group of outliers, always on alert and ready to run.

In the outside world, things are not good: extinctions and a loss of diversity threaten what’s left of the environment. With a new disaster looming, Fin finds herself thrust into an unlikely partnership with a stranger―an Incomplete named Terry. Incompletes are a new and widely distrusted breed of evolved humans. But the pair will need to work together during a dangerous journey if they are to play their part in a plan to help restore balance in the natural world―and in humankind.

Inga Simpson began her career as a professional writer for the Australian government before earning a PhD in creative writing. Her novels―Mr. Wigg, Where the Trees Were, The Last Woman in the World, and Willowman―have earned many awards and honors in Australia, including the BookPeople Adult Fiction Book of the Year. She was awarded the final Eric Rolls Prize for her nature writing and has obtained a second PhD, exploring the history of Australian nature writers; her own account of her love of Australian nature, Understory, was published in 2017. Simpson lives on the New South Wales southern coast, among trees.