A NEW SCIENTIST BEST SCIENCE FICTION BOOK OF 2024

'Beautifully written and exquisitely tense' C.J. COOKE
'A masterwork of vision and power' MANDA SCOTT

A lone ship journeys south, heading for the furthest reaches of Antarctica. It belongs to Sky, the billionaire behind a groundbreaking project to salvage the region. On board is disgraced environmental activist Ivy Cunningham, lending her expertise in the hope that it might rescue her reputation - and perhaps even mend her broken relationship with her son.

And yet, as the ship moves ever deeper into the breathtaking but eerie landscape, Ivy grows increasingly suspicious of her fellow passengers, and starts to question the project's motives.

If she could leave, she would - but she knows there's no way home.

Exhilarating, terrifying and thought-provoking at once, The Edge of Solitude is a story of climate emergency and human fallibility, of the clash of ambition and principle, and of the choices we make when we know that time is running out.

This intelligent, tense eco-thriller made me shiver with creeping dread. Katie Hale's ice-cool exploration of guilt is also a total pleasure -- CLARE POLLARD
Powerful, authoritative, atmospheric and wise -- JOANNE HARRIS
Fascinating, immersive and brilliantly poised. Essential reading for all humans. We don't have enough books like it -- MOLLY AITKEN
Set in a worryingly plausible future where the possibility of reversing climate change is reliant on the whims of billionaires, The Edge of Solitude is not a book to miss. Disgraced activist Ivy Cunningham is a monstrously human creation, testament to Hale's formidable ability to delve into complex and flawed psyches -- CAILEAN STEED
Beautifully written and exquisitely tense, this is eco-fiction at its best. I loved it -- C.J. COOKE
In The Edge of Solitude, Kate Hale has produced a masterwork of vision and power. At once a highly personal search for redemption, it offers and unflinching prospect of the world we will create if we don't change course. Full of wit and colour, alive with the beauty, wonder and terrible power of the human and more-than-human worlds, this is a book that will stay with you long after you put it down -- MANDA SCOTT
Thought-provoking * * Bookseller * *
Praise for My Name Is Monster: Fresh and powerful . . . Hale's writing is assured and . . . strikingly beautiful . . . Hale is certainly a skilful writer with a compelling voice, and her ideas are bold and promising * * Guardian * *
Taut, tough and sensitive, the narrative conjures up a devastated world, inhabited by two intriguing characters, with precision and real atmosphere * * Daily Mail * *
Katie Hale has written two fascinating, flawed and compelling characters and, with only two people and an empty world, has created a novel that is gripping, insightful and unique -- CLAIRE FULLER

Based in Cumbria, Katie Hale is the author of two novels: My Name is Monster and The Edge of Solitude: a New Scientist Book of the Month, and awarded a Northern Writers' Award for Fiction. Katie also won a Northern Debut Award for her poetry collection, White Ghosts, and she is a former MacDowell Fellow, whose work has taken her from Antarctica to the Arctic. She has won the Palette Poetry Prize, the Munster Chapbook Prize, and the Aesthetica Prize, and her short fiction has been longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She also mentors young writers as a Core Team Member of the Writing Squad.

@katiescribbles | halekatie.com