Jessica Bell

How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness Jessica Bell

Imagine being put to death for the crime of your child's unhappiness.

This is the tale of Icasia Bloom: how she is caught up in a story not initially her own, and how it changes her world.

In a Globe controlled by a trusted yet elusive leader who has granted immortality to those who live by The Book, misfit Icasia Bloom is doomed to die young for the crime of her child's unhappiness.

Like all 'tatters' she gets food by bartering, and when she brings customers to the new local bakery, she meets another borderline outcast, Selma Beyett, whose plight touches her.

Selma's husband Jerome must die in six months if his quest for perpetual happiness is not successful.

What starts as a desperate attempt to save Jerome takes the two women on a profoundly enlightening search for happiness. Icasia questions the Globe's judgement on its people and on the nature of happiness itself.

Heart-warming, yet strangely unsettling, How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness, questions everything we take for granted, and takes a long, hard look into our souls.