Wolf Country takes place in 2050, in a Britain where monthly spending determines social status and ageing is a thing of the past

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Lightning Books has signed up Wolf Country, a debut dystopian novel by Tünde Farrand set in Britain in 2050, where a citizen's level of monthly spending dictates their social class.

Ownership of land is the preserve of a tiny elite, and the rest of the population is divided into High, Mid and Low Spenders. When citizens stop spending, they lose their Right to Reside and must retire to a Dignitorium, where they are rewarded for their lifelong contribution to society with nine wonderful months, before being peacefully euthanised.

Alice is a young woman whose husband, Philip, has gone missing, along with all the money from his bank account. Desperate, and on the verge of losing her own Right to Reside, she begins to question the society in which she was raised and ends up turning to her older sister, Sofia, who abandoned the family many years ago to marry an Owner. Sofia never disguised her hatred and contempt for her younger sister, but she may be the last chance Alice has…

‘Tünde Farrand’s vision of our future is bleak and chilling, all the more so because it is so believable,’ says Scott Pack, Lightning’s editor-at-large. ‘As with novels such as Never Let Me Go and Station Eleven, this fictional world feels like one we could be living in a few decades from now.’

Tünde Farrand grew up in Debrecen, Hungary. She lived, studied and worked in several countries before settling in the UK in 2005, where she has continued to work as a language specialist and modern languages teacher. She gained an MA in Creative Writing from Sheffield Hallam University in 2016.

She says: ‘I am thrilled that Wolf Country has found the perfect home at Lightning Books whose editors completely understand what I wanted to express with the novel, which to me is not so much fiction as a palpable and menacing reality.’

Pack acquired UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights from Charlotte Seymour at Andrew Nurnberg Associates.

Seymour says: ‘This dark, thought-provoking debut gripped me from the moment I picked it up – an unsettling, frighteningly relevant novel about consumerism gone wrong.’

Lightning will publish Wolf Country in paperback and e-book in late January 2019.