The Dissidents, Volume 1

Content : A breathless dystopia, somewhere between The Handmaid’s Tale and The Last of Us.

Since the Extinction, being born a woman is a rare exception — and exceptions are hunted down without mercy. Until there are none left.
Jo is on the run. Thirty years after the world collapsed into chaos, a state of demographic emergency was declared. Now, every girl over fifteen must submit to the Reproduction Duty — or be sent to the Birth Institutes. None have ever come back.
Hunted by the authorities, Jo’s only hope is to reach the Scandinavian Union, still free from oppression. But her plan soon unravels. To cross the border, she must team up with Edgar, a young man who has lived his entire life in isolation and knows nothing of the government’s reign of terror. Worse still, Edgar has an uncanny knack for attracting fugitives to their perilous journey.
Cornered and desperate, Jo and Edgar have only one goal left: survive.
A chillingly believable vision of a devastated France — and an unmissable debut from Tosca Noury.

A terrifyingly realistic world: After months of research and in-depth interviews with experts in geopolitics and demographics, Tosca Noury approached this novel like a true investigative journalist.
A breathless page-turner: Once you start, there is no putting this book down. The story hurtles forward through high-speed chases, shocking twists, and powerful emotions — including the revelation that Edgar’s grandfather is none other than the founder of this totalitarian regime. Your heart races, and by the final page, you’re left craving more.
A slow-burn romance: Jo is a determined, grounded mechanic. Edgar is gentle, caring — and perhaps a little too naïve. In a world as brutal as theirs, they should never have met… and that’s exactly what makes their connection so beautiful. As they face impossible obstacles, they slowly learn to trust each other, giving the romance an authenticity and emotional depth heightened by the novel’s alternating points of view.

About the author:
Tosca Noury was born in 2003 and grew up under the sun of Aix-en-Provence. Passionate about books and writing from an early age, she began publishing her work online at just thirteen and, four years later, self-published her first poetry collection, La force de vivre, followed by De l’orage naît un soleil, later republished in 2022 by Le Courrier du Livre.
Since 2016, she has shared her love of writing and reading on social media and through her podcast LitThéRatures.
A graduate in political science, after studying between Lyon, London, and Dublin, Tosca now divides her time between the worlds of cinema and writing. Based in Paris, where she is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and documentary filmmaking, she escapes the capital whenever she can to roam the lush plains of Burgundy and the valleys of Savoie, which she explores in every season.