Fourteen months after the outbreak, thirteen months after the nuclear war, the old world is gone, but a new world is emerging. The evacuation of Britain failed, but other evacuations were a success. In Canberra, a new civilisation is being born, but in Canada, the survivors bid a last and final farewell to the Atlantic.

While a final evacuation of Nova Scotia is planned, the search for lost communities begins. The journey takes Bill and Kim to the very end of the Earth, and to a meeting with familiar strangers.

Crossing the border, Sholto endures a bittersweet return to the country he'd embraced so many decades ago. The United States he remembered is gone, and yet he can see its shadow among the burned ruins and desolate towns of the American Northeast.

But the rains soon turn to a flood that washes away the few bridges not destroyed during the failed quarantine. With no other escape from the deluge, they take to the river. On the Hudson, they sail into the middle of a civil war. When they learn one faction is led by the last surviving member of the political conspiracy that spawned the apocalypse, it is obvious which side to take.

Set among the thawing wilderness of Quebec and Ontario, the swollen rivers and flooded roads of New York, and in the courtrooms of Canberra, this novel includes characters and events from the five-part Pacific-based series Life Goes On.