Keeper's Child

Keeper's Child, Leslie Davis, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2007

Set in the near future, this takes place on a continent whose population and climate have been ravaged by disease and genetic mutation.

It all began innocently enough. Many years before, a cargo ship full of genetic material sank off the coast. Over 600 migrants were hired to clean up the mess. It took years for their offspring to develop what became known as Bruster's Syndrome, but once they did, the government panicked. The diseased and
their relatives were kept in quarantined camps. Those frightened citizens who could leave the continent have certainly done so. Houses for the diseased, who are called desgastas, are set up. In a way, Bruster's is like AIDS, in that a person can live a normal life with the disease. But, once it takes hold, the end is slow, painful, disgusting and assured.

Jesse is a celebrity in Carpenteria, one of the last safe cities on the continent, but the scientific mistakes in his past have caught up with him. His latest experiment has failed, dashing any hope of a future for his people. Beckoned by Harold, his brother and the last Keeper of the sick, Jesse travels to the shore, and sees the ruined climate for himself.

Harold's last ward is a young girl named Robin, who may be the savior of humanity. She is born desgastas,
and has spent her whole life in exile. Jesse takes her to the city, to give her something of a normal life.
Robin volunteers in a makeshift hospital, helping those dying of Bruster's. Eventually, she contracts
full-blown Bruster's (for lack of a better term), and, amazingly, she survives. She has long since run away
from the city, and returned to the house at the shore, where Jesse takes several samples of her blood, and returns to the city to turn them into a serum. Meantime, the desgastas squatting outside the city have entered the city and taken over. Now, they are dying faster than anyone can keep up with them.

This is a rather "slow" novel, but a really good novel. Stick with it, for the story is very much worth reading.