Happy US book birthday to CROSSHAIRS by Catherine Hernandez, which is out today from Atria!
From the beloved author of Scarborough, comes a dystopian novel set in a frighteningly familiar near future. With massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called the Boots seizes on its power to force communities of colour, the disabled, and the LGBTQ2S into labour camps in Toronto. In the shadows, a hero emerges. After his livelihood and the love of his life are taken away from him, Kay joins the
Resistance, alongside Bahadur, a transmasculine refugee and Firuzeh, a headstrong social worker. Guiding them in the ways of combat is Beck, a rogue army offer, who helps them plan an uprising. A cautionary tale filled with fierce and vibrant characters, Crosshairs explores the universal desire to love and be loved as your true self.
Praise for Catherine Hernandez and Crosshairs:
• Chapters / Indigo Top 50 Books of 2020
• CBC 40 Books to Read This Fall 2020
• CBC Best Canadian Fiction of 2020
• Marie Claire Magazine One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2020
• Cosmopolitan Magazine One of the 20 Best Books to Read this Winter
• Featured Book, Vanity Fair, December, 2020Bustle, The Most Anticipated Books of December
• Hello Giggles, The 10 Best New Books to Read in December
• PopSugar, 21 New Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in December
• Geek Tyrant, The Most Highly Anticipated Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of December 2020
“Crosshairs is both unnervingly prescient and undeniably profound. A harrowing work that’s as much a battle cry as a ballad for the erased, and we should all be listening.”
– V.E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author of A Darker Shade of Magic
“A beautiful, unapologetic, and unwatered-down burst of fury against cis white supremacy and tyrannical power systems, centered around a main cast that must be fiercely protected. Hernandez writes the best kind of dystopian story, one that holds a sobering mirror up to our own world. Let this book haunt you.”
– Marie Lu, New York Times bestselling author of the Legend Series
“Every character has a moment to tell their story. Hernandez delivers beautiful and heartbreaking scenes in a story that is hard especially because of how close it feels to our present.”
‒ Booklist
“Crosshairs leaves readers with two promises. The first is that change is possible. If people with privilege can be motivated to take action against systemic oppression, soul can be saved and lives can be spared. The second promise is that without change, we are hurtling towards disaster. Consider this book a call to action. A demand for change before it’s too late.”
‒ Quill and Quire
“Catherine Hernandez is groundbreaking. Her talent is remarkable. I dare you not to cry or scream or marvel or, like me, do all at once while reading this book. This story is a masterpiece of voice and metaphor, image and embodiment. But it is also a perfectly crafted portrait of us now, of us then, of the us we hope to be. I love this book, this big, bright missive that not only breaks the ground, but that gifts us with the steps to take in order to get to the other side, together.”
‒ Cherie Dimaline, bestselling author of The Marrow Thieves and Empire of Wild
“Hernandez is unrelenting in her portrayal of the regular violence, assault and abuses faced by these Otherized people in “civil societies.” She excels in her ability to show the ease of even the most brazen fascism and the pervasiveness of the feelings and scenarios that elicit its subsequent rise.”
‒ USA Today
“Crosshairs made me shiver. It troubled my dreams. Still, I could not put down this dystopia. It was utterly compelling. Catherine Hernandez prophesies Canadian genocide against Queer, Black, Brown, and Indigenous folks. At the same time, she inspires the reader with her depiction of a resistance full of characters who ‒ even in the face of hatred and complacency ‒ show love, pride, endurance, courage, and insist on living to the very last breath.”
– Lawrence Hill, bestselling author of The Illegal and The Book of Negroes
“Crosshairs is a blistering page-turner. One can describe it as dystopic fiction, but Catherine Hernandez is presenting us with something much more prescient to consider. The novel acts as a provocation and a challenge for readers to locate themselves. Crosshairs offers a glance into a world that is possible if we continue on a trajectory that is frightfully present. Most importantly, Crosshairs asks us what we will do to resist and build a better future when faced with such momentous and dangerous times.”
– Carianne Leung, award-winning author of That Time I Loved You
“In Crosshairs, Catherine Hernandez shapes a world at once fantastical and familiar, remarkable and relatable . . . The result is a sparkling but devastating novel about corporate and state cruelty, individual as well as community sacrifice, and Queer Black and Brown kinship that must be protected at all costs. Timely, unapologetic, complicated.
– Jenny Heijun Wills, award-winning author of Older Sister, Not Necessarily Related
“Hernandez’s storytelling throughout is compelling, and she builds tension and intrigue as the story moves forward, leaving the reader ravenous for the outcome. . . A rare and wonderful and formidable feat.”
– Letticia Cosbert Miller, The Toronto Star
Catherine Hernandez is a proud queer woman of colour, a radical mother, a theatre practitioner, an award-winning author and the artistic director of b current performing arts. She is of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian heritage, and she is married into the Navajo Nation. Her novel Scarborough, which is soon to be a motion picture, won the Jim Wong-Chu Award for the unpublished manuscript; was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award, the Evergreen Forest of Reading Award, the Edmund White Award and the Trillium Book Award; and was longlisted for Canada Reads. She has also written the plays Singkil and Kilt Pins, as well as the children’s book M Is for Mustache: A Pride ABC Book. Crosshairs is her second novel. She lives in Toronto. Catherine is represented by Marilyn Biderman.