The Book of Strange New Things

Peter Leigh, a reformed addict turned Christian minister, is chosen by a mysterious corporation to travel to an alien planet and serve a receptive nonhuman population. His wife, Bea, stays behind on Earth, and their only connection is a stream of messages sent across impossible distance.

On Oasis, Peter settles into a strange but orderly mission among the aliens, who are eager to hear the Bible and treat his teachings with intense seriousness. Meanwhile, Bea’s life on Earth grows steadily more desperate as disasters, shortages, and social collapse mount around her.

As Peter grows more absorbed in his work and Bea grows more isolated, the gap between them becomes both physical and emotional. The novel follows their strained correspondence, Peter’s uneasy place among the Oasans and the human compound, and the pressure of faith, responsibility, and love under conditions that seem to pull everything apart.