Please Remain With Your Vehicle – Paperback

Nobody ever breaks down somewhere convenient.

Pip Saradhi-Lowe has a first-class engineering degree, a laminated handbook that is thirty years out of date, and no idea what they’ve signed up for.

Recovery Unit 9 patrols the Thinning, the loneliest stretch of the Verge Lane. Engines die there, goats float loose in zero gravity, and a honeymoon yacht’s plumbing has started singing. The crew of the tow-tug Marigold answer every call anyway:

• Odessa Quill, the captain, a disgraced racing champion who would rather tow a moon than talk about her past
• Barn, who names his tools and cries at weddings
• Mott, an alien adjuster who cannot lie but has turned not answering into an art form
• Dispatch, the gravel-voiced voice on the comm who knows everyone’s business except her own

Then a slick drone-recovery company arrives with an eleven-minute response guarantee, and the Club is nearly broke. Late one night, on the oldest frequency the Club owns, a distress call comes in from a marker that isn’t on any chart.

Pip was sent here to write a report. Nobody said anything about falling in love with the job.

A warm, funny, character-driven space adventure full of banter, found family and small kindnesses, with a mystery humming quietly underneath.