Another dystopia, this time with a woman – seventeen year old Noria – becoming one of the world’s only, if not first, tea masters. Water is the world’s most precious resource; created from desalination plants and completely managed by distant imperial masters in New Qian. Noria is entrusted with a deep secret, one that could save her town and, simultaneously, destroy it and her. The tone of the novel is reminiscent of silver age or new wave SF – refreshing and pleasant to read whilst uncovering the various pieces of the story, the reader always a step or two ahead of Noria.
