I Got A Book Deal!

An unusual newsletter to bring you the very best news…

I'm delighted to announce my science-fiction debut, Inworld, pitched as The Three-Body Problem meets Annihilation, which will be published in spring 2027 by Saga Press in the US and HarperVoyager in the UK.

Inworld follows an enclave of humans fighting for survival outside an alien megastructure who struggle to decode a cryptic language that will either return them to Earth or help them live within the savage centre of a star-spanning sphere known as Inworld.

The books will be available in hardback, ebook, and audiobook in the US and the UK. We already have several translation deals in the works. The incredible US cover has already come in; I’ll send it out via this newsletter first, when the time comes.

The deal is for two books, and a year after we signed the contract my head is still spinning. It’s a dream deal with two dream publishers. I’m thrilled to be bringing this story to the world after years of hard work.

A big moment for me was seeing my name on Publishers Marketplace, a trade website that reports book deals. I had to grab a screenshot… It’s probably going to end up as a print on my wall.

Sharing the news has been overwhelming. I’ve put off this newsletter for a few weeks, because I’ve been so busy with my master’s degree in creative writing. But I’m here now, and it’s a relief to be sharing the details after a long and winding process to publication.

It has been, by all accounts, a whirlwind year. All the shiny wow moments have somehow gone from seeming impossible to already happening. There was even a announcement in The Bookseller:

But enough about me. You probably want to know more about the book.

A summary of Inworld:

When a doctoral student makes the discovery of a lifetime, hardly anyone will believe her... until evidence of a signal from another star system becomes too much to ignore. When an alien starship arrives in Earth orbit, requesting ten thousand humans to board, a strange pseudo-mathematical language emerges that layers all five of the senses. Those who board the ship, bound for the signal’s distant origin, decode an enigmatic message: This Canon defines the divine will of the Makers.

One hundred years later, the descendants of those who took the trip are at a breaking point. Their home, Yomi, is on a desolate ring orbiting Inworld, a dangerous Eden at the heart of the star system. With their resources running dry, the city is divided between those who want to give up, those who have put all their hope in a rescue mission from Earth, and those who want to travel to Inworld – something forbidden by the punitive laws of the Canon. Laws they’ve spent generations trying to translate. Laws enforced by merciless sentinels.

When possible intelligent life is detected on Inworld, an elite group is dispatched in secret. Some make the journey to search for answers in the Canon. Others are there to contact other sentient creatures, in the hopes of understanding who brought them to this place, and why. No matter their mission, as the team cross the vastness of Inworld, facing predators, homicidal superbeings, and titanic forces of nature, they all must follow one rule. Obey the Canon, or face certain extinction.

It’s a chunky, winding book. I like to think it has something for everyone: big on character, mind-bending sci-fi concepts, plenty of action, and all that meaning of life stuff.

I’ll be sending updates as things develop, but it’s a delight to finally talk about it publicly.