When We Have Wings

If you have the money, you can join a self-created elite: the winged. These fliers are not only given wings; they have their own architecture, fashion, religion and politics, and build floating towers in the sky. Those who live outside The City in the rural slums of RaRA-land can only look up at this new species of human in wonder and despair.

Except for one remarkable girl, Peri, who is prepared to sacrifice everything to get her own wings. When she kidnaps a rich family's child, the investigation threatens to undermine the glittering world of fliers and reveal its ruthless secrets.

'This book is mischievous with scientific meddling in a way that echoes Margaret Atwood's dystopian fiction Oryx and Crake. Corbett creates a world where cars have artificial intelligence...plants glow at night...spliced with jellyfish genes and lions are shrunk to the size of a cat...Corbett's prose has the clarity, luminosity and beauty of a well-cut diamond...this flight of fancy deserves to soar.' - Thuy On, The Weekend Australian.

'This is what makes When We have Wings unsettling - the realisation that this is a metaphor for today's world...Humanity is still the force that matters and endures.' - Mary Philip, The Daily Telegraph

'...a thoroughly convincing, immaculately researched account...this wonderful new author unerringly explores the social consequences and the strains between fliers and non-fliers. - Crisetta MacLeod, AurealisExpress