An eye-opening book set on the Australian East Coast a few years from now.
None of us know exactly when the sea level rises will start to force change - whole families moving en masse away from their coastal communities - but we know it will happen eventually.
In an Australian beachside suburb, climate change can no longer be ignored…
Constant storms have damaged Bombora’s coastline. When rising tides force ‘Vaga’, the beloved beachfront restaurant, to finally close, it is seen as the start of an inescapable tragedy.
Community rifts deepen, old friends clash, and while some flee the idyllic suburb for safer ground, many others stand firm, defying the increasingly erratic weather. Mick, a charismatic local figure, faces a family crisis as he grapples with the impending threat. A chance encounter with Renata, an old schoolmate, and her son Guil, a local surfer, forges an improbable alliance.
As a menacing storm looms on the horizon, Mick and Guil rally Guil’s surfer friends to form a ‘tinnie army’ of local first responders. But when the tempest strikes with unrelenting force, it triggers a chain of events that will alter all their lives forever.
Powerfully relevant and gripping, High Rise delivers a bold and haunting vision of the not-so-distant future. The terrifying question all readers will ask: is this science fiction or history written ahead of its time?
Launching on Earth Day, an annual event to demonstrate support for environmental protection, High Rise is part of a new genre of environmental storytelling or climate change fiction (cli-fi).
Author Vanessa Lee wants to create awareness and action for climate change policies by engaging readers with compelling fiction rather than statistics and news reports.
About The Author
Vanessa Lee is an author and poet who was raised in a beachside community on Australia’s East Coast. She currently lives in Europe where she is at her happiest when hiking the solitary Alpine peaks of Italy, Switzerland and Austria with her family.
She visited Australia in 2022, after the covid lockdown. It rained torrentially for a month and there were terrible floods around Lismore and north towards Byron Bay, which sadly took away many people’s livelihoods and homes. During these floods many normal Australian citizens saved people from their homes with paddle boards and jet skis.
These heroic acts inspired her to write High Rise and her book is a tribute to these first responders. It is also a call to action, as climate change scientists and experts warn that these types of events will continue to increase unless drastic changes are made.
