An unforgettable debut novel about the journey of three women and one extremely endangered snail through contemporary Ukraine

'Brilliant ... funny and smart, full of science, longing and adventure, all the while reminding us what the world stands to lose, and what it has already lost. This is essential reading' ANN PATCHETT

'A fantastic novel' PERCIVAL EVERETT

'Heartbreaking, hilarious, profound, and vital, Endling is a brilliant, visceral journey that pulses with a powerful sense of urgency and relevance to our times' LARA PRESCOTT

Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a maverick scientist who scours the country's forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to settle down and start a family of her own. What they don't know: Yeva already dates plenty of men-not for love, but to fund her work-entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they'll find docile brides untainted by feminism.

Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours.

So begins a journey of a lifetime across a country on the brink of war: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species.

"Heartbreaking, hilarious, profound, and vital, Endling is a brilliant, visceral journey that pulses with a powerful sense of urgency and relevance to our times" - Lara Prescott

"Wild, exhilarating, heartbreaking...Over and over again, Endling delivers flashes of beauty and grace and dares us to see hope amidst wreckage and ruin" - Anelise Chen

"Ironic, sharp, and wise, this is a big (meta)fictional achievement" - Karan Mahajan

"This work on feminist outrage, environmental destruction, and the inhumanity of war is not didactic; instead, it is a page-turning, genre-bending meta-novel as entertaining as it is gut-wrenching, whose experiments with literary form will keep readers on their toes" - Library Journal (starred review)

"Full of suspense and humor, while never letting go of what is really happening in the lives of Ukrainian people at home and abroad . . . A noteworthy literary achievement and also a good story, sure to be widely discussed and enjoyed." - Kirkus (starred review)

"Astonishing . . . this inspired and urgent novel is bound to make a major splash" - Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"Brilliant and heart-stopping" - Los Angeles Times