Leviathan Wakes is the explosive first book in The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey, a pseudonym for authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Set in a future where humanity has colonized the solar system, the novel introduces us to James Holden, the executive officer of an ice mining ship, and Detective Miller, who is on the hunt for a missing girl.

When Holden and his crew discover a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they are thrust into a dangerous conspiracy that threatens to destabilize the fragile balance of power in the system. Miller's investigation into the girl's disappearance leads him to Holden and the secrets hidden aboard The Scopuli. Together, they must navigate the tensions between Earth's government, outer planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations. Amidst political intrigue and looming war, Holden and Miller's actions could alter the course of human history.

Mary Turner is a self-confident, independent young woman who becomes the depressed, frustrated wife of an ineffectual, unsuccessful farmer. Little by little the ennui of years on the farm work their slow poison, and Mary's despair progresses until the fateful arrival of an enigmatic and virile black servant, Moses. Locked in anguish, Mary and Moses -- master and slave -- are trapped in a web of mounting attraction and repulsion. Their psychic tension explodes in an electrifying scene that ends this disturbing tale of racial strife in colonial South Africa.

The Grass Is Singing blends Lessing's imaginative vision with her own vividly remembered early childhood to recreate the quiet horror of a woman's struggle against a ruthless fate.