Spotlight: Ashes of the Republic by James Chesterton

The year is 2046. Freedom is extinct. Faith is law. And one woman’s impossible pregnancy could ignite a revolution.

The United States has devolved from a thriving democracy into a Christian nationalist surveillance state—where elections are theater, dissent is erased, and women’s bodies are monitored by the government.

Lily Osbourne has learned how to keep her head down. Then, while passing through Colorado Springs airport, everything shatters when a TSA agent informs her she is pregnant and assigns her fetus a Social Security number.

Lily is on a contraception guaranteed to be effective for twenty years, so the only way this is possible is if she took the pill that opens a temporary window of fertility.

But she doesn’t even own one, which means someone chose for her.

As Lily and her partner, Jeff Maslow, search for answers, they are drawn into the orbit of Iwanna Dennison, the president’s ruthless daughter and a larger conspiracy that could unravel the regime itself. Or make it invincible.

As rival forces plot in the shadows, Lily is pulled into the brutal power struggle at the heart of the Dennison regime, where her pursuit of truth threatens to shatter a nation built on lies.

Terrifyingly plausible and razor-sharp, Ashes of the Republic is a gripping series opener that blends the political paranoia of 1984 with the feminist fury of The Handmaid’s Tale.

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About the Author

James Chesterton is the author of Ashes of the Republic and Holding Patterns, a financial crime thriller inspired by his 30 years in the banking industry. A graduate of Hunter College, he began his career teaching high school English before earning an MBA from the University of Connecticut and transitioning into corporate banking. Chesterton’s work confronts the real-world consequences of power exercised at the highest levels. He lives in New England with his wife in their newly empty nest. jameschesterton.com