Imagine a world where Anxiety no longer exits…
40 years after The Fall—an apocalypse generated by Anxiety-induced mass suicides and genocides—a Cure has been found and successfully implemented within Seattle.
The city is ruled by Unbranded, an omnipotent corporation that has established a new kind of government with peace as its currency. Over the years, they’ve worked to rebuild a new society complete with strict routines, monitored tasks, and calorie restrictions bred into daily life since childhood.
Karey goes about her daily life, completing regular meditations and working as a communications specialist at her firm, Tech Solutions. One day, she encounters a feeling unlike anything she’s experienced before and feels it slowly take over her thoughts—and her life.
When she decides to confide in someone close to her, everything she’s ever believed gets shattered and she soon realizes things may not be as peaceful as they seem.
Perfect for fans of the Divergent, The Hunger Games, 1984, and The Matrix, Nostrum demonstrates what a world without Anxiety might look like and allows readers to determine for themselves whether it’s worth eliminating something so core to being human.
About Ashley Hoffman
Ashley Hoffman (1993-now) was born in San Diego, CA to parents of an Italian, German, and Russian descent. She grew up in the San Diego area and in 2008, she and her family moved to Arizona where she lived in Payson, Flagstaff, and Phoenix. In 2016, she moved to Seattle to pursue her career in marketing and writing.
She wrote her first novella when she was 13, a fantasy story complete with dragons and magical books, and has published a number of poems and short stories throughout her life. She completed the first draft of her first novel, Nostrum, in 2017 as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and published it in March of 2019. In college, she was diagnosed with a panic disorder. Her novel combines her love for post-apocalyptic fiction with a question she often asks herself: what would the world look like if anxiety no longer existed?