Fierce and funny, this unforgettable novel charts the journey of three women and one extremely endangered snail through contemporary Ukraine. Yeva is a maverick scientist who scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to settle down and start a family of her own. What they don’t know is that Yeva already dates plenty of men – not for love, but to fund her work. She entertains Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides untainted by feminism.

Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of activism against the romance tours.

So begins a journey of a lifetime across a country on the brink of war: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. Inventive, smart and a one of a kind road trip.

Longlisted For The Climate Fiction Prize 2026