The Orchid Nursery. Louise Katz

      “Terrifying, but so beautifully, dreamily written.” — Elizabeth Farrelly

      “The reader is hurtled pell-mell into a febrile world of strong and desperate characters, alien lore and changing loyalties. As Pearl and Mica avoid ‘attaining Perfection’ and the Orchid Nursery, they make their separate difficult journeys through a dystopian world that Katz presents with luminous, edgy and at times almost unbearably vivid descriptions. Mysterious and compelling, the narrative is etched with a grim humour in its dark evocation of a world both eerie and strange and yet also disturbingly familiar.” — Libby Hathorn

      “A powerful story, so visual and present it feels like a cross between a painting by Hieronymus Bosch and M C Escher … if they’d both read Riddley Walker and The Road. A fundamentalist ruling class and its deformed creed are the brutal gardeners in the nursery; meanwhile, one young woman escapes, knowing only what she cannot live with. Confronting in its truths, The Orchid Nursery’s richness of language also layers it in warmth and humour.”— Stephanie Smith

      “A superbly crafted vision of a toxic cultural wasteland. Three women: rebel, zealot, hag. Three journeys through a disintegrated future. Check current news reportage before claiming the horrors of The Orchid Nursery could never come to pass within our lifetime.” — Cat Sparks