
A corporate hacker. An elusive billionaire. A society trying to survive the American Nightmare. A queer cyberpunk Gatsby reimagining.
Bindery Books/Inky Phoenix Press (US) + Bonnier Books/Zaffre (UK)

Available Now
Local Heavens is a paperback-first release in North America. The limited hardcover of the US/CA edition from Aardvark Book Club is on sale Sept 2025 until supplies last. Purchases open now for the Fae Crate (Nov 2025) special edition.
Also available in audiobook from Simon Maverick/S&S.
Press
✨A Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Science Fiction (2025)
✨ Amazon Books Editors’ Pick: Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (October 2025)
✨ New York Times | Great Cyberpunk Novels That Imagine New Futures
✨ Elle | Best Fantasy and Science Fiction Books of 2025
✨ Kobo | Best Science Fiction Books of 2025
✨ Goodreads Most Anticipated Books (Fall 2025)
✨ Lithub | October’s Best SFF
✨ Book Riot | Most-Anticipated New Queer Books Out in October 2025
✨ Book Riot | Fantastic New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of October 2025
✨ PureWow | This Gatsby Twist Stands Out
✨ Town & Country | Best Great Gatsby Retellings
Praise for Local Heavens
“Easily one of my favorite books of the year. Fajardo’s Local Heavens is not just a cyberpunk reinvention of The Great Gatsby, but a singular revelation in its own right. Creative, incisive, and elegantly crafted, this one will wow you even as it wrecks you—you’ll be holding your breath to the end.”
—Olivie Blake, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Atlas Six
“Gorgeous, decadent atmosphere. Local Heavens pierces to the core of an American classic, transforming the original Gatsby’s prosperity and prohibition into an era of technological dominance and the consequences therein. An exemplary execution of the cyberpunk genre.”
—Chloe Gong, New York Times Bestselling Author of Immortal Longings
“Brilliantly transposed to a futuristic world, rife with corporate greed and complex politics, Fajardo’s version of The Great Gatsby manages to both honor F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original and carve out a story that’s entirely the author’s own.”
—Elle Magazine
Read more
“Speaks with a satirical eye on the current state of the world and this era of late stage capitalism with humor and feeling. ” —PureWow
“Fajardo’s impressive debut reimagines The Great Gatsby as a cyberpunk thriller [and] expertly transfers the themes of exploitative capitalism, mysterious and possibly illegal wealth, and complicated desires haunted by loss and queerness to a dystopian setting. The result is an evocative and powerful reworking of an American classic.” —Publisher’s Weekly
“Beautiful, intelligent, timely, and so much fun, Fajardo’s darkly futuristic reimagining of The Great Gatsby is imbued with a powerful appreciation for humanity and all of its flaws, whilst also maintaining an electric sense of building dread. In true sci-fi fashion, moral questions hover around the characters like vultures, and absolutely nothing is as it seems. I could not look away. A phenomenal new talent has entered the SFF space.” —Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, Sunday Times Bestselling Author of The Principle of Moments
“Luring us in with glitz and glamor, neon and chrome, Fajardo dazzles readers with a stunning retelling of The Great Gatsby, peeling away the layers till all that remains is the painfully human, flawed story of a man caught in the unforgiving space between the harsh reality and the seductive lies of the American Dream—and how it destroys everything it touches.” —K. M. Enright, Sunday Times Bestselling Author of Mistress of Lies
“Comprising a tech thriller, a speculative capitalist nightmare, and a cat-and-mouse noir against the backdrop of 2075-era New York City, K.M. Fajardo’s cyberpunk remix of Fitzgerald is effortlessly greater than the sum of its parts. A pillar of American literature becomes electrified and transmuted in this sensational debut.” —Jinwoo Chong, author of Flux
“Local Heavens is the heady, sultry cyberpunk retelling of The Great Gatsby you didn’t know you needed. Fajardo’s writing is deliciously decadent and aching, both true to the spirit of the original while offering a fresh, startling spin on the carelessness of immense wealth and the people who get chewed up and spit out along the way to make it. This is a gorgeous book. Keep your eye on this debut!” —Yume Kitasei, author of The Deep Sky and Saltcrop
“An ambitious, sizzling modern remake of Fitzgerald’s classic that takes us to new heights and emotions. With unique twists and turns that are both fun and sombre, Fajardo brings new and necessary questions about the future we are hurtling toward.” —Shubnum Khan, author of The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years
“Local Heavens turns anew the timeless considerations of ambition, dreams, desire, and consequence in an astutely imagined and richly inventive cyberpunk reality. Full of gorgeous prose and narrative depth, this book was an absolute delight to read.” —Christina Li, author of The Manor of Dreams
“Fajardo has built a dazzlingly unique world that is still as close to the Roaring Twenties as it is to our own times, and she has breathed new life into this classic tale about ambition and the American Dream.” —Victor Manibo, author of The Sleepless and Escape Velocity
“Local Heavens is deeply true to Fitzgerald’s themes and texture, transmuting the classic into a sultry, haunting exploration of the American Dream through the lens of one of the most common and underrepresented Americans—the diaspora Filipino. A high-tech, high-stakes melodrama of identity, intrigue, sexuality, power, and legacy. Fajardo draws out, with care and passion, the nigh-Shakespearean romance at the heart of Gatsby in the traditional, tragic sense of the genre. A shrewd, futuristic dismantling of the hyper-capitalist empire of our past and present.” —Maya Gittelman, Ignyte-nominated writer and critic
“K. M. Fajardo’s retelling brings a fresh, futuristic perspective to a beloved story, adding depth, dreaming and dystopia all at once. A wonderful intersection of nostalgia and speculation.” —Christy Anne Jones (@christy-anne-jones), YouTuber and writer
A corporate hacker. An elusive billionaire. A society trying to survive the American Nightmare.
New York City, 2075. Filipino-American Nick Carraway has just moved to the heart of the fractured New Americas, where he’s struck by the city’s contradictions—shining corporate towers casting bleak shadows over the slums of a crumbling middle class.
When Nick meets alluring new-money Jay Gatsby, he falls for Gatsby’s frank charm and confident aura. But in a city where the wealthy flaunt tech-enhanced bodies to cheat death, surfaces aren’t all they seem—and as a corporate-sanctioned cyberspace hacker, Nick knows that no secret can stay buried forever. He’s the reason they don’t. And his latest assignment? Investigate Gatsby himself.
As Nick becomes entangled in the dark affairs of the elite—and the devastating fallout of their actions on the city’s most vulnerable—he must reckon with the limits of compassion and accountability across class and status. What takes precedence: Love, or truth? Heart, or soul?
A brilliant reimagining of Fitzgerald’s classic tale of glamour, desire, and desperation, Local Heavens examines the guardrails of morality… and the price of desire.
CONTENT WARNINGS
Prominent
- Classism
- Discussions of body modifications, transhumanism
Medium
- Sexual content
- Depictions of death, gore, violence, mutilated bodies, self-harm
- Racism, micro-aggressions
Light or off-page
- Mention of suicide, suicidal imagery
- Allusions to domestic abuse, postpartum depression
Editions

(US, Bindery Books/Inky Phoenix)
Art: Karan Singh
Design: Charlotte Strick

(UK, Bonnier Books/Zaffre)
Art/Design: Jake Cook
Aardvark Exclusive Edition


EARLY RELEASE: Available September 2025 while supplies last.
Fae Crate Special Edition


Featuring all-new redesigned dust jacket, illustrated endpapers and more. Theme art by gabriella.bujdoso / dust jacket by nekokonut22 (art) and tirsotanjr (typography).
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read The Great Gatsby to follow Local Heavens?
No, I think whether or not you read GATSBY first is more a question of which way you want to engage with LH: as a reimagining, or as its own story. I hope readers who are familiar with GATSBY will feel rewarded as they discover the parallels and easter eggs, and I hope other readers will have an equally fun experience stepping into (a version of) GATSBY’s world for the first time.
When will Local Heavens be available in [insert country here]?
Unfortunately, I don’t really know, but thank you very much for your interest. I’ll always update on my social media if I ever have updates on this front. Some shops may be able to place special orders if you ask so it’s always worth checking. Blackwell’s and many other retailers ship internationally to a number of countries.
I’m not a big sci-fi reader. Will I enjoy Local Heavens?
It’s more “upmarket speculative” than it is “hard” science fiction. Some comps: For fans of THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR, CHAIN-GANG ALL STARS, Emily St. John Mandel, Black Mirror, and other literary sci-fi. On the cyberpunk side, I think the world of LH follows in the footsteps of things like Neuromancer, Blade Runner, and Cyberpunk 2077, with some of the cyberpunk x jazz vibes of Cowboy Bebop.
What is the age rating?
Adult. Content warnings are listed at the top of the page, so readers/guardians/teachers can make judgements on a case by case basis.
What queer identities are represented?
LH takes place in an alt-future New York City in the 2070s. Heteronormativity isn’t really engrained in the world, so the sexualities of characters are implicitly fluid. LH is a “queer retelling” in that it examines GATSBY and all of its character relationships through that lens. In my mind, Nick is bisexual, but the exact labels are never stated.
Why did you keep the same names?
“Carraway” is not Nick’s real name. He is full Filipino and his nationality is American.
Some side characters’ names have been transposed. I’d considered changing the names of the main characters too, but in the end, I decided not to. I preferred the dissonance between “familiar” and “new” elements throughout the book (“past” and “future”; “nostalgic” and “high-tech” etc). The names are there to nod to the original, but not to keep them tethered to it. Part of the magic of writing a retelling is making famous characters reincarnate into new people, and trying to convince the reader that these are characters they’ve never met before. While TGG is about Gatsby, to me, LH is about Nick.
Who is your favourite character in The Great Gatsby?
Jordan 🙂



