SF NOVELIST FIONA ERSKINE JOINS JJLA
Fiona Erskine has joined the John Jarrold Literary Agency for representation of her forthcoming science fiction novels.
The Lye follows a flying power station on an interplanetary relief mission. The chief engineer – Maya – faces plague, mutiny, sabotage and dark political forces as she strives to bring heat, light and power to the inhabitants of a stricken planet before their time runs out. The intimacy of Becky Chambers meets the hard science of Alastair Reynolds when a dysfunctional crew are thrown together on their first quest. The Lye will also appeal to readers of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir – and viewers of Star Trek.
Her first international thriller, The Chemical Detective, was published in 2019 by Point Blank (Oneworld) and shortlisted for the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award. The Jaq Silver series continues with The Chemical Reaction (2020), The Chemical Cocktail (2022) and The Chemical Code (2023) and the quartet has been optioned for Film & TV (represented by Juliet Mushens and Emily Hayward-Whitlock). Her stand-alone portrait of a Scottish factory, Phosphate Rocks: A Death in Ten Objects (2021), made the UK Literary Review’s top ten crime novels. Losing Control (2024) is the first in a police procedural series.
Fiona Erskine is the pen name of Professor Fiona Macleod, a chemical engineer with many decades of industrial experience, who currently teaches process safety in the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield.
‘This is multi-stranded, full of very different, involving characters – some of whom are human – and the Lye itself is only one of the varied, brilliantly-imagined settings. It’s a remarkable SF debut from an outstanding writer,’ said John Jarrold.