“A sharp, timely examination of power, corruption, and control in a world lulled into complacency.” — Kirkus Reviews
WESTPORT, Conn., April 2, 2026 — In James Chesterton’s dark and thrilling futuristic satire, Ashes of the Republic (Broken Ledger Press; April 28, 2026), it’s the year 2046, and Christian Nationalism has fully consolidated power. Evidence of liberalism is subject to punishment, women’s bodies are governed by data, medical professionals have been replaced with AI, and the blueprint for authoritarian rule is no longer theoretical—it’s fully operational.
At the center of the story is Lily Osbourne, a gifted technologist who once helped build the very systems that now govern daily life. After crossing her employer, Dennison Robotics CEO Iwanna Dennison, Lily is cast out of power and retreats into quiet anonymity. That fragile invisibility shatters during a routine airport screening when a TSA agent informs her that she is pregnant, which is strictly controlled by the government. In the Republic, all unregistered pregnancies are flagged. Her fetus is issued a Social Security number. The state is notified. Her body is no longer her own. She and her boyfriend, Jeff Maslow, a former professor once arrested for reading Walt Whitman, must now find a way to survive, even as Iwanna Dennison claws her way to the highest reaches of power, the focus of her psychotic ambition.
Deeply rooted in current events, Ashes of the Republic draws from real-world debates surrounding reproductive surveillance, the fusion of religion and state power, the erosion of privacy, and the expanding role of data and AI in governance. Policies and ideas that felt speculative during the novel’s early drafts have since emerged as court rulings, legislative proposals, and political platforms, Chesterton explains.
“This is not distant dystopia or traditional science fiction. Nearly every mechanism of
control depicted in the novel already exists today, waiting only for the removal of institutional limits to be fully realized,” Chesterton said, enumerating these plot points:
· The United States is now a theocratic surveillance state.
· Elections are performative.
· Dissent is being criminalized.
· Women’s bodies are regulated by data systems backed by religious authority and unchallenged executive power.
· Freedom is being bureaucratized out of existence.
“This isn’t your parents’ sci-fi,” he added. “Its tone is controlled, unsentimental, and wickedly funny—a fast-paced thrill ride full of twists and turns.”
Ashes of the Republic is the first installment in the Ascent of Dennison series of gripping political thrillers that asks what happens when legal, cultural, and moral guardrails are deliberately dismantled by leaders who believe themselves divinely justified and technologically unaccountable.
Ashes of the Republic: A Dark Speculative Thriller
Publisher: Broken Ledger Press
Release Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN-13: 979-8-9951710-1-0 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 979-8-9951710-2-7 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 979-8-9951710-3-4 (audiobook)
ISBN-13: 979-8-9951710-0-3 (eBook) Available from https://www.amazon.com/Ashes-
