Description

‘An explosion of creative beauty and heart’ NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH, author of CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS

‘Dazzling and inventive’ DANIELLE EVANS, author of THE OFFICE OF HISTORICAL CORRECTIONS

‘North’s ability to capture the essence of queer experiences with authenticity and empathy sets this work apart . . . tender and insightful’ GLAMOUR

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Raffi is a physicist who spends their days removing stars from pictures of the night sky, dreaming about parallel universes. In this one, they’re falling for a queer sculptor named Britt who they almost met when they were kids – if only they’d had the courage to say hello.

What if Raffi had said hello? The question catapults Raffi across alternate universes, each an answer to the question of what their life might be like if things had happened just a little differently.

Each universe is beautiful and dangerous for Raffi. Where apocalyptic landscapes teem with bears, mothers fracture into hordes of animals, and glistening sandcastles stand tall enough to live inside. Across them all, Raffi searches for a life that feels their own. But everything eventually leads them back to Britt: the girl they loved and lost.

IN UNIVERSES is a kaleidoscopic and tender navigation of love, queerness and belonging that bursts with imagination and hope.

Publisher Review

In Universes is an explosion of creative beauty and heart. Emet North is a massively talented writer arriving ready to awe. — Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, New York Times bestselling author of Chain Gang All Stars In Universes is a dazzling and inventive exploration of the many people we might become, the possibilities we might discover, and the heartbreak we can’t run from. This novel is a breathtaking introduction to a brilliant new voice — Danielle Evans, , award-winning author of The Office of Historical Corrections Emet North beautifully fractures the veil between genres, weaving a kaleidoscopic journey of identity, love, and the choices that make us. This is a multiverse where both tender and painful childhood memories echo through the dark matter of adulthood and finds its way to post-apocalyptic gardens of the dead. An assured and wildly imaginative debut that never loses its heart in any of its realities — Sequoia Nagamatsu, bestselling author of How High We Go in the Dark Beautiful and surreal, In Universes is a tenderly-crafted maze that brims with emotion-despair and regret, love and hope-as it wrestles with the endless seeking of self and the ‘what-ifs’ that define a life. — Fonda Lee, author of The Green Bone Saga and winner of the World Fantasy Award Blends great storytelling with serious contemplation of what the many-worlds theory could mean for questions of identity, life, death, and more . . . Read this when you need a bit of hope and uplift * Lit Hub *