It begins in 2016. Another wet summer, another year of storm surges and high tides. But this time the Thames Barrier is breached and central London is swamped. The waters recede, life goes on, the economy begins to recover, people watch the news reports of other floods around the world. And then the waters rise again. And again. Lily, Helen, Gary and Piers, hostages released from five years captivity at the hands of Christian Extremists in Spain, return to England and the first rumours of a flood of positively Biblical proportions… Sea levels have begun to rise, at catastrophic speed. Within two years London and New York will be under water. The Pope will give his last address from the Vatican before Rome is swallowed by the rising water. Mecca too will vanish beneath the waves. The world is drowning. A desperate race to find out what is happening begins. The popular theory is that we are paying the price for our profligacy and that climate change is about to redress Gaia’s balance. But there are dissenting views. And all the time the waters continue to rise and mankind begins the great retreat to higher ground. Millions will die, billions will become migrants. Wars will be fought over mountains.

Hundreds will live, six billion will die. Our world ended in 2052, the year the last great flood finally overwhelmed the lands. A desperate bid for survival began in America, in the years before the end. The project which could be our final act could also be an impossible dream: creating a starship to take a few hundred survivors on an epic journey to a new world. As the waters rise, as savage wars are fought over the remaining high ground, the work goes on. Those who will live, of the billions who will die, are chosen. Families are torn apart and the resources of our drowning world are marshalled for one last gamble. Ark is the story of three women, Grace, Venus and Holle, and their part in humanity's struggle to reach a new home. For the few survivors, the day of the launch will be only the beginning of the nightmare.