FANTASY NOVELIST ANDY LIVINGSTONE JOINS JJLA
The latest client to join the John Jarrold Literary Agency is fantasy novelist Andy Livingstone.
His new novel – the first in a series – is Blood of Antiquity, a post-apocalyptic fantasy. Civilisation is several hundred years into regrowth, having grouped in vast, tightly-controlled cities with technologies that have redeveloped to roughly the standard of our 1920s-30s, but the city is cramped, so there are no modern vehicles other than trains; wood is prohibited to all but the elite, so all is formed from metal, bricks, stone and animal fibres; power is purely electrical and generated from wind and water. The story is that of Lukas Hunter, a fixer in the less-reputable areas of his city, a man nondescript in appearance but exceptional in physical ability, cold in nature but prone to uncontrollable emotion – a man of opposites he does not understand. Sought by an unusual pair of siblings and pursued by the city’s top investigator, he finds himself on a mission to save his city and in doing so discovers that the reason for his nature is the same reason as that for his abilities: it lies in the truth of the evolution of humans and the races they grew from. Their blood, the blood of antiquity, runs through us all, and in the very few with the greatest strength.
After early short story publications, Andy was one of the authors signed by HarperVoyager UK’s Digital First project by Natasha Bardon. They published his Seeds of Destiny trilogy. The first book, Hero Born, was released in 2015, with Hero Grown and Hero Risen in 2016 and 2017 respectively. He lives in Scotland.
The second book in the new series, A Blade Reforged, in the planning stage.
“Andy’s writing involved me from the first page,” said John Jarrold. “Lukas Hunter is a great, unusual character, and all those who people this book come right off the page to exist three dimensionally in the reader’s imagination. His world is fascinating, and wonderfully created – its background and history gripped me. It lives and breathes as strongly as the characters do.”