The Predictions

Fifteen-year-old Poppy has grown up at Gaialands, a vegan commune deep in the New Zealand bush. The settlement was founded on the ideals of the 1970s counterculture, with shared labour, open relationships and a belief in a better way of living, though daily life there is rarely as harmonious as its founders promised. Poppy's attention turns to Lukas, a sixteen-year-old who is growing openly doubtful about the commune and the grown-ups who write its rules.

When Shakti arrives at Gaialands with a gift for divination, she holds a Predictions ceremony to restore the community's energy. Each of the teenagers receives a card describing their future. Poppy's card says she will find her true love overseas. Soon after, she follows Lukas as he chases his dream of forming a punk band, first in Auckland and then in London, where punk has been overtaken by 1980s pop and hair metal.

In London the pair struggle to get by, moving through squats, pubs and the city's growing club scene. As the years pass, they gradually drift apart. Poppy builds a life that closely resembles the one her card described, yet she begins to wonder whether it is the life she actually wants, and whether she can shape her own happiness even if it leads somewhere no one predicted.

The Predictions is the new novel from Bianca Zander, whose earlier book was The Girl Below. It moves between a remote commune and a restless music scene to explore fate, love, mistakes and the search for one's own place in the world.