History That Never Was

Izzy Wasserstein’s These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart (Tachyon Publications, 2024) presents a mystery that brings a former commune member who left on bad terms back into contact with her former community. Set in a near-future dystopia where corporations and climate change have caused most of humanity to suffer, it also looks at themes of family (chosen and biological), gender, and the lengths to which desperate people might go when they run out of other options.

When Dora’s former lover is found dead in the commune that both women once called home, she’s brought in to solve the mystery, much to the chagrin of many with whom she burned all ties over issues of security. As she delves deeper in the what is quickly determined to be a murder, those responsible begin threatening her life in direct and indirect ways.

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart is a fast-paced story with a remarkable group of characters and darkly lovely details in the setting that help flesh out this world. Though the setting is science fiction, it offers a stark look at a very plausible future and its chilling repercussions. To me, it felt like the best possible blend of shows like Orphan Black or Hanna combined with ecofiction elements.

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Tags: dystopian, ecofiction, Izzy Wasserstein, LGBTQ, review, science fiction

This entry was posted by dawn.vogel on Wednesday, May 6th, 2026 at 6:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.