Short Synopsis
From the critically acclaimed author of The Last of Her Kind comes a breakout novel that imagines the aftermath of pandemic flu, as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy who is uncertain of his destiny.

Full Synopsis
After losing both parents to a flu pandemic that seriously threatens his own life as well, thirteen-year-old Cole Vining is sent to live with an evangelical pastor and his wife in Salvation City, a small town in southern Indiana. There, Cole feels sheltered and loved but never as if he truly belongs. Everything about his new home is vastly different from the secular world in which he was raised. As he tries to adjust, he struggles also with memories of the past, a struggle made more difficult by the fact that he had lost his parents at a time when family relations were at their most fraught and unhappy. How is he to remember them now? Are they still his parents if they are no longer there? Must he accept what those around him believe, that because his parents did not know Jesus they are condemned to hell? During this time, Cole finds solace in drawing comics, for which he has a remarkable gift, and in fantasies about being a superhero.

Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness. It is about spiritual and moral growth, and the consolation of art. It is about belief—belief in God and belief in self. As others around him grow increasingly fixated on the hope of salvation and a new life to come through an imminent rapture, Cole imagines a different future, one in which his own dreams of happiness and heroism begin to seem within reach.

"The great success of Nunez's book is that the end of the world is filtered through Cole's imperfect perspective, so that the collapse of society is no more devastating than first love, and deeply felt conflict rages as a young man tries to find something worth preserving in a place determined to obliterate the past. " ---Publishers Weekly

"A good choice for all contemporary fiction readers. Fans of Cormac McCarthy's The Road will find similar themes of a near-future dystopia and the human capacity for redemption but wrapped in a lighter tone." ---Library Journal

"Narrator Stephen Hoye shines in his portrayals of the characters, especially the charismatic Pastor Wyatt." ---Library Journal Audio Review

"Nunez's writing is gorgeously spare, and she gets the life and the lingo of a teenage boy just right." ---Boston Globe

"[A] satisfying, provocative and very plausible novel." ---The New York Times

Kirkus Bestseller