Waiting on Wednesday – Poor Relations by Jo Walton

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine to let us share our excitement for books coming out soon.

While I still have a number of Jo Walton’s books I’ve not yet read, the ones I have (the Thessaly series), I have loved. I find she has a talent for merging interesting characters, intriguing plot and some deeper threads that can cause you to think a bit. So between that, and the fact this description would make me want to read it anyway, I am really looking forward to this one!

Poor Relations by Jo Walton
Also by this author: The Just City, The Philosopher Kings
on February 20th 2018
Pages: 320

   

“Haunting character complexity that ultimately holds the reader captive to the tale.” –N. J. Jemisin, New York Times, on My Real Children

Described by Jo Walton as “Mansfield Park on Mars,” Poor Relations is an eye-opening exploration of social and financial precarity, brilliantly imagined and deeply pertinent to today

“When it came down to it, you couldn’t legislate against the economics of sex and gender any more than you could legislate against people being poor.”

It’s the twenty-fourth century. Humanity has spread throughout the solar system–but for most of us, life is as precarious as it was in Dickensian England. Brothers Achille, Marcantonio, and Nore have been raised rich, but after their father spends the family fortune and puts a laser to his head, they’re forced to face facts. The wealthy Luke Bailey is willing to pay top dollar for what’s left of their estate, enough to buy Achille a commission in the space Navy. But only if Marcantonio and Nore will both become female–Marcantonio to marry Luke, and Nore to be their spinster housekeeper, for as long as Luke lives.

Over the next two decades, the now-female Marcantonio and Nore struggle to make lives for themselves in the service of their wealthy keeper. Then the alien invasion arrives.