DEADLANDS by Victoria Miluch (Mexico)

Deadlands: A Novel
by Victoria Miluch (Mexico 2019-20)
Lake Union Publishing
October 2023
254 pages
$16.99 (Paperback); $4.99 (Kindle); 1 credit (Audio Book)

 • • • 

Victoria Miluch (Mexico 2019-20)

From debut author Victoria Miluch comes the riveting story of a girl on the cusp of womanhood living in an arid wasteland and the encounter with two outsiders that upends her understanding of the world beyond it.

Only the most hardened survivalists can endure living in the scorched deadlands of the former state of Arizona. Among them is nineteen-year-old Georgia Reno, who lives in an isolated desert settlement with her father and younger brother. Roads don’t exist here; visitors are more dark fairy tale than reality.

But when two mysterious strangers arrive on their land, Georgia begins to question her sheltered existence. Soon, her tentative curiosity blooms into a fledgling desire to leave the settlement, even if it means venturing into a world her father has only ever warned against.

As their tenuous situation deteriorates, Georgia uncovers secrets about the visitors that could threaten her family’s fragile existence in the desert. But to leave the newcomers at the hands of her father could put everyone’s lives at risk — and force Georgia into an impossible decision.

Welcome to the Deadlands, where survival is never guaranteed … and loyalty is put to the ultimate test.

• • • 

Victoria Miluch is a fiction writer and translator whose work has appeared in journals such as Passages North, Southeast Review, Asymptote, and Arkansas International. She is the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship. Born in San Francisco and raised in Arizona, she currently lives outside of Washington, DC, with her family.