Virgin Land

<p class=ql-align-justify>Shayla Gainrad is a young woman raised in a splinter community of reactionary would-be settlers who abandon interplanetary society for newly discovered planets. </p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Shayla has achieved the settler dream-a home on the frontier world Erde surrounded by rich and fertile lands-but she is increasingly lonely homesick and alienated from her husband.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Although Shayla has told herself to endure events on Erde begin to push her new life into disarray. The arrival of spacers from outside the settler community a freak accident and the persistence of Erde's wild flora and fauna all add to Shayla's growing realisation. </p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>The teachings she accepted as a child cannot explain reality's complexities and webs of action and reaction will have far-reaching consequences both in her own life and across the strange landscape of Erde's ecosystem.</p><p><br></p>