Daniel Pandiyan’s debut novel, Sanctuary, is a bleak survival story set in a world ravaged by an apocalyptic event. In the aftermath of a devastating solar flare that has killed countless people and caused a financial collapse, society is threatening to crumble. 13-year-old Miles, orphaned by the flare, faces a dangerous journey; he must leave his temporary safe haven in Costa Rica and travel to Wisconsin to find his remaining family. As he migrates north, Miles meets fellow travellers along the way, each with their own story – but only Miles holds the precious documents that will get him across the border. 

Miles and his group travel across the Costa Rican border, up through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and onwards towards the United States. Along the way, they face long, gruelling walks, battling ever-present hunger and fatigue. As they cross rivers, climb mountains, and encounter constant danger on the road, the unforgiving landscape pushes the group to their limit. Sleeping in churches and empty houses, forced to beg and steal to survive, the dream of safety and stability up north keeps Miles going. But will America be the sanctuary that Miles desperately needs? And who ultimately decides if he has a place there?

Sanctuary is beautifully crafted, very effectively using vivid descriptions of Miles’s environment to enrich the story. The writing style is short, snappy and poetic; brief, impactful sentences build tension as the story progresses. The descriptive language is immersive, painting bold images of coffee fields in the Costa Rican heat, abandoned streets layered with rust, roads red and dusty with clay, and the vibrant colours of a Guatemalan market. The reader is brought straight into the world of Sanctuary via passages like:

“The road winds through coffee fields, red dirt rutted by carts that no longer run. The air tastes like dust and something green—unripe coffee cherries, bitter on his tongue.”

This story is rooted in genuine accounts from immigrants; this is not a sanitised depiction of the journey north from Latin America. At times the characters are faced with violence, brutality and betrayal. Miles struggles with knowing who to trust, and with the consequences of his own choices in the name of survival. Sanctuary depicts the brutal reality of debt bondage keeping workers trapped, and questions the overwhelming power and authority that a piece of paper can hold. The characters are fleshed out and fully realistic; your heart breaks for these everyday people as they face impossible odds.

At its core, Sanctuary is a story of survival, belonging, and the hopeful belief that – to quote the book – “People are good sometimes.” This book leaves you thinking about it long after you finish reading. It’s a lovingly crafted story, and every aspect of Miles’s journey has been extensively researched. This is set in an uncomfortably realistic future, existing as a sobering reminder – some evils are only made possible when enough ordinary people are complicit. 

I give Sanctuary 4.5/5 stars.

You can find more about Daniel Pandiyan and the process of creating Sanctuary here.

Pre-order Sanctuary here.