In a future that looks suspiciously normal—self-driving cars, drone skies, robots flipping burgers—seventeen-year-old John is anything but ordinary. A tech prodigy with a broken past, he carries a secret so big it keeps him locked inside himself.
Then one Tokyo night, a tiny café changes everything. Inside waits Neotnia, a mysterious waitress with a secret that could upend John’s world—and maybe the entire world.
As their bond deepens, they journey from neon-lit streets to Hiroshima’s ghosted history to the snowy mountains of Nagano, uncovering a truth more staggering than anything John could code.
Beautiful Shining People is a haunting, tender, and quietly explosive speculative novel about connection, loss, and the future we think we’re ready for—but aren’t.
