Skyward Inn

January 18, 2021
Beneath the veneer of understated English-village realism lies a mind-bending reality in this slow-moving sci-fi fable from Whiteley (Skein Island). Years ago, Jem abandoned her baby for a 10-year contract to plaster the newly discovered planet Qita with propaganda posters. Now she’s back home in the Western Protectorate, a walled-off region of England that has chosen to return to a pre-industrial life, where she and her Qitan partner, Isley, run a popular inn. Jem and Fosse, her now-teenage son, both seethe with resentment and alienation; meanwhile, an unauthorized Qitan visitor sparks a chain reaction of uncanny physical ailments among the people of the Western Protectorate, and the strange symptoms cast the Qitans’ peaceful surrender to humans in a new light. Much of the novel is bogged down by dreary characters and overly vague worldbuilding, but as Whiteley builds to the climax, her trademark subtle surrealism shines. Literary sci-fi readers with a taste for family drama will enjoy this molasses-slow, deeply weird story of missed chances, invasion, and assimilation. Agent: Max Edwards, Aevitas Creative Management.

May 14, 2021
Whiteley (The Beauty, 2018) takes the reader on a journey through space to a possible future Earth, where the Qitans have landed to use Earth as a stopping point on their way to conquering the universe for their overwhelming hoard of citizenry. Barmaid Jem and Qitan Isley met while on a commission for the Coalition, after which they decided to set up the Skyward Inn for all travelers coming to and from the Protectorate. At first, Jem's brother Dom was not comfortable having an off-worlder living in the Western Protectorate, but the three and Jem's son, Fosse, now make a team of sorts. Then a second Qitan by the name of Won lands on the Western Coast with a broken spacesuit. Seeking asylum in the Inn, she enlists Isley and Jem to find the piece to fix her suit. Meanwhile, at the Valley Farm, Fosse is cutting school and generally being a teenager. He gets to know the three strangers who moved into the farmhouse; Annie and Victoria are pleasant to him, but Cee is more standoffish. When Fosse is caught in a lie, he joins the Coalition, where he discovers what the Qitans have planned for Earth: a melding of all life to resurrect their own. Skyward Inn is told in relentless fast-paced action scenes with a love story mixed in; readers will be drawn in by the first page.

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