Everyone senses it – the space for those who think differently, act differently and love differently is shrinking once more, the threat is increasing. But for now the 'Heaven Bound' still exists. Its glitzy stage is the home of the drag queens and a refuge for outsiders and night birds. Tucked out of sight, the bar is the only place where even Sylvia feels safe. As a young vixen on the run, Sylvia plucked a human skin from a clothes line and has lived as a woman among people ever since. She shares her live with Jonathan, a dreamer and self-professed world saviour. When a feathered tumour grows on Jonathan's back and his transformation begins, it becomes clear that not everything with wings can fly. But the utopia of the 'Heaven Bound' will always be worth fighting for.

Karin lives with her boyfriend Alexander in a house by the woods. Her foster-sister Lisa once lived there too, along with her parents August and Inge, sister Margarethe and brother Peter. Back then Karin and Lisa were happy; they grew as fast as the brambles, dived to the bottom of the lake hand in hand, and hid in the tiny caves formed by tree roots. Then something happened; August died and the foster child was banished. Years later Karin fetches Lisa back, and the two women become entangled in a game as destructive as it is seductive, sucked into a whirlpool of addiction, attraction and repulsion which holds us enthralled till the final page.

Every Saturday, three superheroines meet in a run-down café called Sette Fontane. There is Mascha, the brave supportive one, Direktorka, the inexperienced one ready for adventure, and Marija's granddaughter who has a flexible conscience and revenge in her veins. The three have dark, chaotic powers and want to bring justice to Vienna's suburbs as they plan a futile uprising of the middle class. "Lightening of Fate" and "Annihilation" are the weapons that grandma Marija already successfully used to destabilize an entire country. After failed appearances and painful years of learning in Berlin, Belgrade, Sarajevo and other cities, our three superheroines ultimately find triumph in the darkest of all happy ends.

In an unnamed wasteland we see the blinking lights of Lightraff, an artificial town that was speedily built around an oil refinery and promises work in a world destroyed by climate disasters. Koslov, a barkeeper in Darkraff, is hoping to find his luck there, just like famer Schreiber and super slick Haye, who even managed to get a job in the municipality. The three share more than their hopes for better life in Lightraff: They share a single bed in shifts – eight hours a night for each man. Once the oil runs dry and the city's tight structure starts to flail, the three bed-sharers meet for the first time. Henceforth, things simply can't go well…

At the flea market Luise discovers an old wax cylinder, used to record sound more than a century ago. The label reveals it was recorded in 1903, in Vienna’s second district, where Luise happens to live. What does the voice from the past have to say? How well do we listen and what are we willing to hear? The characters in Poiarkov’s immersive debut novel deal with these questions as they face their own issues: Luise’s boyfriend Emil, a sound archivist who loves recording cracking ice and rumbling streets; Luise’s friend Milan who passionately yearns for beautiful Zorica from Novi Sad; her other friend Julia who must face her alcoholic mother; and Josef Grasl, Luise’s father, who roams the streets in search of ghosts from the past.