AustLit

'Jem doesn’t do risk. He doesn’t play games with chance. At least not until his ex-girlfriend shows up on his doorstop in tears and tricks him into signing for an impossible debt.

'Thrust into an underworld of card players who bet anything they can think of – favours, information, secrets, even coffee – Jem has to figure his way out of a debt he doesn’t understand, in a world where the rules are twisting, complex and never explained. Relying only on a woman who plays life like she plays a game of poker, and drawn to a young man who offers temptations Jem’s not sure he can trust, there is only one thing he is clear on: the consequences of losing in this crowd. Because the last guy to owe a debt like his was just found floating face down in the ocean, and if Jem doesn’t sort this out fast, he could be next.'

Source : publisher's blurb

Five or six years after an apocalypse destroyed society, a woman makes her own way across the world. A schizophrenic constantly followed by the voices in her head, she seeks a list of medications that she hasn't been able to find for a long time, but she remains alive and moving in a brutal world.