Paul Johnson lives a quiet life. Teaching English in a Sheffield Comprehensive, looking after his daughter, cooking for his wife, the surface of his life is the height of stability.

But Paul can't walk to his car without chanting to himself, trying to drown out the voice pulsing through his mind: You can't keep them safe. You can't keep them safe. He has learned how to calm his panicked students - but not himself.

One grey morning, the calm veneer of his life is fractured when he discovers that his favourite student Laura has died. Now, his intrusive thoughts threaten to jeopardise everything. Facing accusations that he was too close to Laura, Paul must find a way to voice his darkest fears, unlearning the stoic masculinity passed down to him, or lose the family he loves.

Class of '99 is described as one of the quiet, working class stories which often get overlooked. Paul, a secondary school teacher in Sheffield in the late '90s, faces his own crises with mental illness at a time when men's mental health was hardly spoken about. Tori Beat shines a light on both mental health and class stigma in this poignant debut novel.

Tori Beat is an advocate for working class writers and working class stories. Tori a former lawyer turned writer from Derbyshire, where she lives with her husband and two young children. Tori rediscovered her love of writing after leaving her career in law to study an Arts & Humanities degree, which led her to submit her first novel, Class of '99, to the Watson Little x Indie Novella Prize in 2023. Through her writing, Tori explores the taboo surrounding mental health, inspired by her own experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as issues of social and gender inequality and the impact and complexity of human relationships.

Class of '99 is described as one of the quiet, working class stories which often get overlooked. Paul, a secondary school teacher in Sheffield in the late '90s, faces his own crises with mental illness at a time when men's mental health was hardly spoken about. Tori Beat shines a light on both mental health and class stigma in this poignant debut novel.