Ember Meridian

When the sky turns unbreathable, what do you save first—your hope or your neighbor? Ember Meridian is a near-future, heart-in-throat novel about a city learning to breathe together when wildfire seasons stop knocking and start moving in. Mara Whitfield, a former medic with a map in her pocket and grief she refuses to waste, stumbles into the Breatheway—a hidden, homespun network of teachers, custodians, engineers, teens, and aunties who turn gyms, libraries, and stage wings into "air commons." With duct tape, moss walls, and box-fan sorcery, they don't chase miracles; they practice maintenance. Alongside Jonah Price, an earnest civil engineer allergic to grandstanding, and Grace Holloway, a strategist who can turn kindness into logistics, Mara helps stitch a citywide corridor of borrowed lungs. As smoke presses down and power grids blink, the Breatheway races to fortify a school auditorium where a cloud-forest play becomes a lifeline. A custodian's broom becomes law. A grocery, a laundromat, and a tent camp under a bridge become neighbors in fact, not metaphor. Each small fix—sealed door, labeled switch, humming cube—pulls the narrative tighter until one audacious test links a chain of "breathing rooms" into a quiet revolution. This is climate fiction that refuses despair. The stakes are intimate: a kid in dinosaur pajamas, a senior center that smells like lemon oil and resolve, a librarian who mists a moss wall like a prayer. The victories are contagious by design. When officials come calling—with memos, cameras, and consequences—the question isn't whether heroics can save the day, but whether habits can. Written with cinematic clarity and stubborn warmth, Ember Meridian delivers grit, tenderness, and a closed, surprising ending that feels earned. It's for anyone who believes the opposite of doom isn't denial—it's coordination. Come for the urgency; stay for the ordinary miracles: shared tools, shared breath, and a map that moves because people do.