Dear Josephine is available as a Kindle book and paperback through Amazon and through other ebook stores at Books2Read.com. The paperback version of Dear Josephine is also available by ordering the paperback through your favorite online or local bookstore.
Here are a couple more Amazon reviews for Dear Josephine, the second book of The Steep Climes Quartet:
William Trippe, Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2025
Dear Josephine continues David Guenette’s Steep Climes series with an absorbing mix of personal reflection and societal unease. Set in the very near future, the novel captures the feeling of living in a world where climate disruption is no longer an abstraction but a daily reality—felt in rising insurance premiums, food costs, political polarization, and personal doubt.
At the center is Davin Caine, a 64-year-old artist and journalist trying to make sense of a country reeling from Hurricane Josephine, extremist violence, and legislative battles over climate resilience. But what’s striking is how grounded the story remains in Davin’s day-to-day life—his vegetable garden, his adult children, his late-in-life dating. Guenette writes with quiet intelligence and a deep sense of place, showing how global crises ripple through small towns and personal relationships.
The plot touches on big themes—corporate influence, AI-driven research, direct action movements—but it’s the character-driven realism that gives the novel its emotional weight. Thoughtful, serious, and unsettling in the best way, Dear Josephine isn’t just speculative fiction—it’s a mirror held up to where we might be headed next.
5.0 out of 5 stars Dear Josephine doesn’t preach—it implicates
Phil Sego, Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2025
Dear Josephine, the second book in David Guenette’s “The Steep Climes Quartet,” is a masterclass in literary thriller writing—a chillingly plausible vision of a near-future climate crisis wrapped in a gripping, intelligent murder mystery.
What makes this book extraordinary is not just the intricately woven plot—though that alone is reason enough to read it—but the profound depth and texture of the characters. Guenette carefully constructs each protagonist and antagonist so that we’re not just witnessing their actions, but becoming privy to their psyches. From Davin Caine, a semi-retired digital news pioneer juggling personal anxieties and financial stress, to the activists, researchers, and corporate operatives around him, every character feels lived-in, morally complex, and deeply human. Their motivations are fully realized, and Guenette ensures that even the smallest details about their lives do double duty—building character while subtly advancing the plot.
The near-future world Guenette envisions is frighteningly believable. With extreme weather events, supply chain instability, AI-driven research, and simmering civil unrest, this is speculative fiction that reads like tomorrow’s news. And yet, amidst this realism, the novel’s pacing never lets up. The appearance of radical climate groups, the mystery of coordinated murders, and the shadowy forces resisting environmental reform all converge in a narrative that is urgent, nuanced, and utterly absorbing.
Dear Josephine doesn’t preach—it implicates. It entertains while it challenges. And by the end, readers will be eager to plunge deeper into the Steep Climes world. This is fiction with purpose, crafted by a writer well versed in the politics and science of climate change and in full command of language and vision.