Love in the new millenium

In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flowerbeds and false reports fly.

Conspiracies abound in a community that normalises paranoia and suspicion.

Some try to flee - whether to a mysterious gambling bordello or to ancestral homes that can only be reached underground through muddy caves, sewers, and tunnels.

Others seek out the refuge of Nest County, where traditional Chinese herbal medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self.

Each life is circumscribed by buried secrets and transcendent delusions.