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The author of the acclaimed novel Scarborough weaves an unforgettable and timely dystopian tale about a near-future, where a queer Black performer and his allies join forces to rise up when an oppressive regime gathers those deemed "Other" into concentration camps.

Set in a terrifyingly familiar near-future, with massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots seizes on the opportunity to round up communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ into labor camps.

In the shadows, a new hero emerges. After he loses his livelihood as a drag queen and the love of his life, Kay joins the resistance alongside Bahadur, a transmasculine refugee, and Firuzeh, a headstrong social worker. Guiding them in the use of weapons and close-quarters combat is Beck, a rogue army officer, who helps them plan an uprising at a major televised international event.

With her signature "raw yet beautiful, disturbing yet hopeful" ( Booklist ) prose, Catherine Hernandez creates a vision of the future that is all the more frightening because it is very possible. A cautionary tale filled with fierce and vibrant characters, Crosshairs explores the universal desire to thrive, love, and be loved for being your true self.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

1   Evan. My beautiful Evan. Here in the darkness of this hiding place, I write you these words. Without paper, without pen, I trace these words in my head, along the perimeter of your outline. Watch this sentence travel along the meat of your cheekbone. See my teeth dig into your flesh playfully. Watch these words ball into your hand along with a fistful of bedsheet, which you pull over us to create a tent. I imagine you now, lying across from me, improvising a silly song about the smallness of my ears. Ironically, you sing it half in tune, half out of tune. "Maybe you're the one with the small ears," I suggest, and you scrunch your face in embarrassment. You're talented at many things, but music isn't one of them. Sometimes the image of you is clear, right down to the curl of your eyelashes. Sometimes, especially when I'm hungry, I recall the shape of your smile and nothing more. Watch these phrases ink across an imaginary page, a Whisper Letter, folded twice, placed in an envelope and mailed to wherever you may be. I will never forget your name, Evan. And I pray you will never forget mine. If by some miracle my whispered words reach you, I want you to know that I'm safe on Homewood Street where Liv has hidden me in her basement. No room in Toronto is ever used in the way it was originally in- tended. That's what happens in a city always trying to reinvent itself. Like it has an itch it can't scratch. Like it has a commitment problem. This place was meant to be a cold cellar. A place where, before the invention of refrigeration, the woman of the house would have likely stored things like butter or eggs. That's why even in the heat of the summer, the heat of this hellish summer, I feel like I'm swimming in the cold breath of ghosts. I'm wearing all the clothes I ran away in. Five layers, which you told me to wear. There is no finding me. At least I hope so. To ensure that I am hidden, I have set up my bed beside Liv's furnace. My bed consists of two layers of cardboard boxes cut to fit in the corner of space behind the furnace, and a pile of Liv's old winter coats, which I use as blankets and a pillow. The idea is, if I need to leave again and in a hurry, what remains behind won't resemble a hideout for me: a Queer Femme Jamaican Filipino man. Anne Frank, minus the diary. It is here where I await news, where I hope for your arrival, where I wait for Liv to feed me or to tell me it's time to run again. I am unsure of exactly how long I have been here, as counting days is its own form of torture. Instead, I understand the passing of time by watching the moon's cycle from the basement window. Maybe you are doing the same. Lunar crescents have grown fat and then thin across the night sky almost six times. And at the swelling of every moon, Liv has re- plenished my supplies. It is through this same basement window that I have watched a raccoon give birth, pushing those kits out, one at a time, in the space between the spiderweb-stained glass and the corrugated metal framing. I have been here long enough to watch them grow too large for the cubbyhole. Long enough to watch the mama bite the collars of each of her whimpering kits and carry them to the surface of the world, high above me. In the dead of winter, under a waxing fingernail moon, I jogged in place to keep my limbs from feeling wooden and numb. In the spring, when the flooding began once again, I would stand in ankle-deep filthy water. Under a new moon, with flashes of lightning as my only guide in the darkness, I filled buckets with floodwater and passed them to Liv through the hatch to pour down the kitchen drain. Since summer has returned, and the moon is pregnant-round, I am thankful the musty smell of mold has dissipated a bit. I can see the sky peeking through the opening of the basement window like a half-circle picture-perfect blue. I'm not sure what is better: to look outside the window and long for sunlight or to lie on my dark makeshift bed, close my eyes, and dream of bicycling with you through the city, fast and free. Excerpted from Crosshairs: A Novel by Catherine Hernandez All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

After environmental catastrophe leads to mass displacement, a fascist government rises in Canada and launches the Renovation. Wealthy whites rule, while those who are Other--Black, Brown, LGBQT, and more--are hounded, lynched, and placed in concentration camps that purvey forced labor and genocide, though to the outside world they pass as workhouses furnishing much-needed jobs. Kay, a Queer Femme Jamaican Filipino man who worked as a drag queen before the Renovation drove him underground, hides in the basement of a white woman named Liv, who works for the resistance. Soon, Kay must go on the run again, joined by Iranian Trans Bahadur and assisted by Beck, a gay white soldier rebelling against the regime; eventually, they are persuaded to join the forthcoming uprising, though not before giving Beck an earful about his presumptions. Novelist/playwright Hernandez (Scarborough) deploys the well-developed characters effectively, creating a chilling and persuasive portrait of a scarily recognizable dystopia and building to a satisfying (if a bit overblown) ending. VERDICT A near-future tale of oppression and resistance that is deeply resonant today.

Publishers Weekly Review

Hernandez's searing if heavy-handed blend of dystopian fiction and social commentary (after Scarborough) conceives of a near future in which environmental disaster leads to a white supremacist regime in Canada. Kay, born Keith Nopuente, describes himself as a "Queer Femme Jamaican Filipino man" and is one of the "Others"--including LGBTQ, POC, and disabled people--who are being marginalized in a campaign to restore Canada to "order" and "tranquility" in the wake of floods and food shortages that caused mass displacement in the country. The Renovation, a government-sanctioned program, deploys special forces called the Boots to strip the Others of their rights in the name of providing food and shelter, rounding them up and forcing them to work in labor camps--or killing them for resisting. Kay hides out first in Toronto with Liv, a white, queer ally of the Resistance, and then at Beck's, another queer, white ally. As the characters band together, they take steps toward a drastic action to gain the country's attention. Hernandez takes a scathing look at discrimination and capitalism in her disturbingly familiar look at Western culture, but, unfortunately, this often reads more like a how-to-ally manual than a novel. While the premise is well-imagined, the story suffers from a lack of nuance. Agent: Marilyn Biderman, Transatlantic Agency. (Dec.)

Booklist Review

Hernandez's second novel covers themes similar to those in her first book, Scarborough (2017)--social justice, racism, marginalized communities--but this time she takes readers to an even darker place. In a near-future, dystopian Canada, the Flood has caused food and water shortages and a white supremacist prime minister has seized the opportunity to force people of color, LGTBQ+ folks, and those with disabilities into work camps. Kay, who describes himself as a "Queer Femme Jamaican Filipino man," is one of the Others forced into hiding from the Boots, a military force that rounds up the Others and unleashes violence on any that don't comply. Liv, a white ally and part of the Resistance, has helped Kay and others survive. Now they are all preparing to fight back. Flashbacks illuminate Kay's backstory, including his drag queen days and relationship with Evan, and every character has a moment to tell their story. Hernandez delivers beautiful and heartbreaking scenes in a story that is hard especially because of how close it feels to our present.

Kirkus Book Review

In her second novel for adults, Hernandez imagines a repressive near future that feels like a slight exaggeration of the present. The narrator, Kay Nopuente, describes himself as a "Queer Femme Jamaican Filipino man." Evan is the lover from whom he was separated when the Canadian government launched the final phase of Renovation--a program that relocates anyone who deviates from a White, cisgender, straight norm to labor camps. Kay is lucky in that he has been sheltered by the Resistance. Part of the narrative focuses on Kay's training to join an armed rebellion led by Others like him and allies committed to using their privilege on behalf of Others. Part of the narrative is made up of Kay's comrades telling their stories. And much of the narrative is Kay's own account of escaping abuse at the hands of his mother and her church and finding a community where he could live freely as himself. One chapter offers scenes of an army veteran who has joined the Resistance teaching Kay to shoot a gun interwoven with glimpses of Kay receiving instruction in the finer points from a more experienced performer. The juxtaposition is powerfully affecting. Beyond that, the disparate parts of this novel are uneven in quality and don't create an entirely satisfying whole. One issue is that several key characters end up feeling more like allegorical examples than real people. Another is that, while Kay is an engaging protagonist and the details of his life would be sufficiently compelling if this novel were simply the story of his life, this novel is not simply the story of his life. Every time the story shifts back into the past, the plot loses momentum. In creating the Renovation and the Resistance, Hernandez is borrowing science-fiction conventions without fulfilling their promise. Taken altogether, every aspect of the novel feels underdeveloped and unfinished. Earnest but disappointing. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.