The Meadows

A queer, YA Handmaid's Tale meets Never Let Me Go about a dystopian society determined to "reform" anyone who is LGBTQ+

Everyone hopes for a letter-

to attend the Estuary, the Pines, the Glades.

To attend the Meadows.

These are the secret places where the best and brightest go to burn even brighter.



When Eleanor gets her letter, she knows she's freed from her hardscrabble life by the sea, in a country ravaged by climate disaster and war. But despite the Meadows' luminous facilities, endless fields, and pretty things, it keeps a dark secret: its purpose is to reform the students inside, to condition them against their attractions, to show them that a heterosexual life is the only way to survive. Anything else, they're told, would topple a society already on the brink of collapse.



Five years later, Eleanor is an adjudicator, making sure the Meadows' former students don't stray from the life they've been conditioned to live. But Eleanor can't escape her past, and the girl she once loved. Because that girl isn't here anymore. What happened to her was Eleanor's fault. And as secrets emerge that send Eleanor scrabbling for the truth, if she's not careful, it might become her fate too.

Story Locale: Puritanical dystopia ravaged by the climate crisis