The Thick and the Lean

In Lambda Award finalist Chana Porter’s “decadent and richly imagined” (Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine) novel, an aspiring chef, a cyberthief, and a kitchen maid each break free of a society that wants to constrain them.In the quaint religious town of Seagate, abstaining from food brings one closer to God.But Beatirc Bolano is hungry. She craves the forbidden: butter, flambé, marzipan. As Seagate takes increasingly extreme measures to regulate every calorie its citizens consume, Beatrice must make a choice: give up her passion for cooking or leave the only community she has known.Elsewhere, Reiko Rimando has left her modest roots for a college tech scholarship in the big city. A flawless student, she is set up for success…until her school pulls her funding, leaving her to face either a mountain of debt or a humiliating return home. But Reiko is done being at the mercy of the system. She forges a third path—outside the law.With the guidance of a mysteriou