Some There are Fearless by Becca Babcock

A compelling contemporary novel set in Canada and Ukraine that follows a nuclear engineer obsessed with preventing disaster, from the author of One Who Has Been Here Before.

Jessica Manchaky’s life has been shaped by the threat of nuclear disaster. She’s a child when she hears news of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and the disappearance of Ukrainian relatives, growing up on a northern Alberta military base during the Cold War. From that moment on, all she wants is to keep danger at bay.

But living in a household with a domineering and volatile mother and a rebellious older brother in isolated Cold Lake, Alberta, Jessica never feels fully safe. When she comes of age, she leaves her suffocating small town for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she meets her future husband and eventually becomes a nuclear engineer in charge of risk assessment and management at nuclear power plants. But even as she shields the world from nuclear disaster, she is constantly facing personal tragedies — like a strained marriage, a misogynistic workplace, and severe postpartum anxiety — that she never quite manages to predict. When her young daughter is afflicted with a mysterious and potentially deadly illness, Jessica must learn to accept that not all risk can be managed.

Beginning with the threat of the Cold War and the ripple effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and punctuated by other disasters both natural and manmade, Some There Are Fearless is an intimate and vulnerable exploration of the thin line between control and chaos from the author of the “terrific debut” (Globe and Mail) One Who Has Been Here Before.

Author Becca Babcock is an award-winning writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She holds a Master's degree from the University of Alberta and a PhD from Dalhousie University. She often worries about being asked for medical help and having to explain she's not that kind of doctor. She has previously published a short story collection, Every Second Weekend, and her fiction has appeared in literary magazines in Canada and abroad. One Who Has Been Here Before is her first novel.

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