My first novel, This Is Our Undoing, is going to be published by Luna Press Publishing sometime in 2022. As you might imagine, I am pretty excited about this. It’s not been easy getting to this point – lots of illness, near misses, more illness, some really near misses – but I’m so glad I found Luna as they are thoroughly lovely people and my book definitely feels happy in their hands. Sometime I might do the obligatory blog about my ‘journey’ to publishing, but not yet because there is still so much of the journey to go.

This is what I say about the book on Luna’s announcement blog post (here):

When I started writing This Is Our Undoing, the UK had recently voted for Brexit and the US had elected Trump, Asia was enduring a devastating heatwave and the Arctic ocean was warmer than it had ever been. I found myself attempting to process my own powerlessness in the face of events that were breaking my heart, and from there, trying to define what power I did have. Can I alone do anything that will make a difference? It’s an important question I think, today even more than it was then. It was this that became the central theme of this story – how do you hold onto the light when the world is growing dark?

The setting of the book felt perfectly suited to this theme. I wanted to explore a potential future but in the claustrophobia of complete isolation, and I wanted the wilderness. In folklore worldwide, forests and mountains are the unknown at the edge of civilisation, the home of Little Red Ridinghood’s wolf and Scotland’s bean sidhe, Slavic leshy and dragons. I’ve lived and worked in the boreal forests of Eastern Europe and Russia, and they are Forests with a capital F – entities that have a presence and resonance beyond the ordinary. I wanted that in this story, but I also see them as standing in contrast to the world beyond, a reminder of wonder and beauty.

This Is Our Undoing is my attempt to discover the power of love and hope in a world where both are increasingly hard to find. In the face of disempowerment, power is in the small things; the choice made, the lone voice, the comforted child. To go into the forest and breathe. To be kind to the lost.

Go back to Blog homepage