A Thrilling Sci-Fi Western Paired With The Author’s Favorite Local Spring Sip
THE BOOK
CASH AND GRAVITY
BY PERRIN PRING
What happens when you mix thriller, sci-fi and the West? It’s a story that only local author and Colorado National Monument ranger Perrin Pring can tell. She describes her forthcoming novel, Cash and Gravity, as the story of Chevy Cole, a female Launch Tech marine living in a world where mega corporations battle for Earth’s remaining metals to cobble together new technology that might, one day, get them permanently off the planet.
During a battle in a dusty corner of Nevada, Chevy stumbles upon a crash site containing a super soldier carrying the world’s first mobile fusion device. After her corporation steals the device, Chevy is forced to partner with Dolon — a man so analog he still uses cash and navigates by paper map — to flee their pursuers, embarking on a low-tech, high-stakes road trip across the American West.
Pring has always been a writer and she’s always played hard outside — a combination that fuels many of her stories. A native Coloradan, Pring holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and screenwriting from UC Riverside-Palm Desert and comes from a long line of ranchers, including ancestors who helped settle Colorado Springs.
She grew up on the Front Range skiing and whitewater kayaking and now spends much of her time recreating on public lands — telemarking, camping, hunting, trail running and exploring the West. Pring’s deep connection to the outdoors and movement breathes life into her storytelling.
The idea for Cash and Gravity came about in 2020 after Pring and her husband spent six days on the Green River running the Gates of Lodore, and they were just coming out of the wilderness at a time when COVID-19 was a new reality the world was facing. She says, “Cash and Gravity is hopeful, but it’s set in an unhopeful time. It’s about a woman who takes up a lot of space, and she’s allowed to. The country is crumbling, the forests are burning, she’s being chased by a mega corporation which will stop at nothing to kill her, but no one is telling her to smile or be quiet, or proceed through the world less like a man and more like a woman. It’s a book about a woman being allowed to succeed and fail in the same way the male characters can.”
Cash and Gravity releases May 26, 2026
Preorder here: simonandschuster.com
Buy local: Out West Books outwestbooks.co
THE BEVERAGE
PEACH STREET DISTILLERS GIN AND TONIC
Perrin’s pick: Peach Street Distillers gin and tonic. “ I love gin and tonics because they are light, cool and hopeful. And the characters in Cash and Gravity are pushed to the very brink, and yet, they retain their hope.”
Peach Street Distillers’ Missy Wylie comments that their Jackalope Gin “does the storytelling: hand-picked juniper, coriander and botanicals offering piney depth and bright citrus, all crafted by hand in the heart of beautiful Palisade.”
Peach Street Distillers
144 Kluge Ave. Building #2, Palisade, CO
peachstreetdistillers.com
Originally published in the spring 2026 issue of Spoke+Blossom.