In 1994 Riding the Unicorn by Paul Kearney published to warm critical acclaim. Ten years later, and today at Solaris Books, we concluded our 2014 re-issue of Kearney’s lost classic Different Kingdom’s trilogy with Riding the Unicorn, featuring a beautiful new cover by the incredible Pye Parr.
For us there could be no better day therefore to share with you the announcement of our next collaboration with Kearney, on his new book The Wolf in the Attic:
Publishing summer 2015 The Wolf in the Attic is a brand new novel from iconic fantasy author Paul Kearney.
In 1920’s Oxford a little girl called Anna Francis lives in a tall old house with her father and her doll Penelope. She is a refugee, a piece of flotsam washed up in England by the tides of the Great War and the chaos that trailed in its wake. Once upon a time she had a mother and a brother, and they all lived together in the most beautiful city in the world, by the shores of Homer’s wine-dark sea. Anna remembers a time when Agamemnon came to tea, and Odysseus sat her upon his knee and told her stories of Troy.
But that is all gone now, and only to her doll does she ever speak of it, because her father cannot bear to have it recalled.
She sits in the shadows of the tall house and watches the rain on the windows, and creates worlds for herself to fill out the loneliness. The house becomes her own little kingdom, an island full of dreams and half-forgotten memories.
And then one winter day, she finds an interloper in the topmost, dustiest attic of the house. A Romany boy named Luca with yellow eyes, who is as alone in the world as she is.
In this way she meets the only real friend she will ever know.
The Wolf in the Attic marks an exciting, new chapter in Kearney’s career, moving away from the epic and military fantasy for which he’s known to create an enchanting new story of a young girl, that retains the essence of Kearney’s world building and stylistic prose. The Wolf in the Attic is a poignant and touching story, with a timely exploration of our cultural sense of self; one which will have fans of Tolkien and Pullman finding a new home amongst its pages.
“Like Robert Holdstock, Ursula le Guin and Philip Pullman, Kearney pushes back the boundaries of what fantasy can actually do. Yes these stories are strange, yes they are speculative – but they are also very human, and that is what makes Kearney one of the most vital authors in genre.” – Jonathan Oliver, Solaris Editor-in-Chief
The Wolf in the Attic is out from Solaris Books summer 2015 – check back soon for more details.
Paul Kearney is the critically-acclaimed author of The Monarchies of God and the Sea Beggars series. He has been long-listed for the British Fantasy Award.
