The Ruiners

A sexy, cerebral eco-thriller following a young couple who purchase a decrepit house on an environmentally ravaged Greek island, to disastrous personal and political consequences Pip’s life is going nowhere. A twenty-nine-year-old waitress with a dead-end job at a lobster restaurant in Melbourne, she discovers her long-absent father has died, leaving her both an orphan and fifty -thousand dollars richer. Pip’s new boyfriend, Sasha, a dashing young scholar of Balkan fiction, convinces her to spend the money on a house in Greece. Swept up in their romance, Pip buys a crumbling fixer-upper on the one economically distressed island she can afford. But instead of landing on a bohemian island idyll, the couple and their friends find themselves enmeshed in an environmental struggle that brings the mistakes of the past—and new betrayals—into sharp relief. A sharp, funny, and deeply felt consideration of global capitalism and its misdoings, The Ruiners announces the arrival of an exciting new talent in literary fiction.

ELLENA SAVAGE is an Australian author. Her debut essay collection, Blueberries, was shortlisted for the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and longlisted for the Stella Prize. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, HEAT, Sydney Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Guardian, and elsewhere.