cover reveal – HESSE PHILLIPS

Próximamente: La traición de Christopher Marlowe

¡Es oficial: Lightborne, o mejor dicho, La traición de Christopher Marlowe, llega a España el 2 de septiembre de la mano de RBA Libros!

Que traduzcan mi libro a cualquier idioma es emocionante, pero al español me entusiasma especialmente (y aún más con un traductor como Efrén del Valle Peñamil al mando). Gran parte de los últimos diez años que he vivido en España los he dedicado a escribir este libro, y poder compartirlo con mi familia y mis amigos españoles, me parece un giro de suerte increíblemente buena. A pesar de estar ambientada en la Inglaterra de Isabel I, La traición de Christopher Marlowe contiene una esencia española: el calor de un verano que no fue tan típicamente inglés, la vida callejera, las callejuelas sombreadas que terminan en plazas luminosas.

A diferencia de su contemporáneo Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe es una figura relativamente desconocida aquí, pero espero cambiar esto, aunque sea en lo más mínimo. Queer, herético, con una personalidad caótica y férreos principios, me resulta absolutamente fascinante e inspirador. Claro que la novela es ficción, pero se basa en eventos históricos: todos los personajes fueron personas reales, involucradas de una u otra forma en la misteriosa y aún desconcertante muerte de Marlowe a los 29 años.

La traición de Christopher Marlowe es una historia de espías y traidores, de personas en los márgenes, poetas, actores, y asesinos. También es un retrato de dos hombres gays y las decisiones que tomaban para sobrevivir en un mundo donde ser queer significaba ser considerado un monstruo – o incluso un demonio.

Me hace mucha ilusión compartir esta historia en mi nuevo idioma y en mi nuevo hogar… aunque también me asusta un poco la idea de mi familia y amigos españoles que por fin van a leer esta cosa en la que he estado trabajando durante años y años. De verdad, esto es lo que preocupa a los escritores, cuando no nos preocupamos por el dinero o los adverbios: “¿Mi familia van a rehuirme tras leer mi libro?”.

Bueno, espero que no les fastidien las cosas gays ni la violencia histórica. Porque – ¡ojo! – es una historia a veces violenta. La Inglaterra de 1593 puede parecer muy lejana, pero era una época no tan diferente de nuestro mundo actual. Una época de paranoia y creciente tensión global, de opresión cada vez más profunda y de nuevas amenazas aterradoras – por un lado cruel y oscura, por otro repleta de poesía y arte que cambiaría el mundo. En ese ambiente existe “Kit” Marlowe, extraordinariamente dotado para ver la oscuridad tal como era, quizás con demasiada claridad. Y en su vida tan precaria aparece Ingram Frizer, un hombre moldeado – literalmente – por esa oscuridad, pero quien ve en Marlowe una luz que pocos perciben…

¡El resto llegará en septiembre!

O si no puede esperar, también esta disponible para reservar en preventa.

Lightborne Updates: Paperbacks & Staying Alive

I must admit I love a good paperback. Smaller, lighter, easy to carry, a paperback book feels like a close friend. I love the subtly textured surface and faint newsprint smell of the paper, and the way the spine of a truly beloved paperback becomes grooved and whitened with age. Hardbacks are great and all, don’t get me wrong – but a paperback is a living thing.

So naturally I was giddy with excitement when my complimentary author’s copies of the forthcoming Lightborne paperback edition showed up at my door the other day. I’ve seen PDFs of the new cover and therefore thought I knew what I was getting into when I opened the box, but no PDF could possibly do it justice.

I think someone in the design department at Atlantic Books must have heard me going on and on about how much I loved the gold on the “deluxe” edition cover from last year, because they went all-out with it. Believe me when I tell you, this baby glows.

And it looks pretty great from the back too.

With the official paperback launch date set for 6 March, preorders are of course available (and encouraged!) But for those who prefer ebooks, the ‘Zon is also running a Kindle Deal on Lightborne for the month of February, where you can score a copy for just £2.19.

It should probably go without saying that all of this is coming at an exceedingly weird time, particularly yet not exclusively if you’re American like myself, and particularly yet not exclusively if you happen to also be queer, and writing queer books, and plan to continue being and doing all of those things for as long as you have breath in your body. I am glad, at the very least, that I made some difficult but necessary decisions to start out the year, and intend to carry that energy with me into whatever comes next.

The intersection of my self and my obsession with history means I cannot avoid writing about queer survival under truly intolerable conditions – history is sadly saturated with them. It also means, of course, that not everybody makes it out alive, and those that do emerge scarred, battered, and at least a little bit broken. But we will always have a future, even in the bleakest of times. History may often show us in our darkest hour, but it also offers hope: we’ve always been here, and will always be here.

For me, the most important words I wrote in Lightborne were these:

You must live because I love you – because you must be avenged
– because to live is a form of vengeance, when so many have
sought to destroy you.

Sometimes it comes down to that: staying alive. Because us staying alive really pisses off the ‘phobes.

And if I’ve learned anything about myself this year, it’s that I get a kick out of pissing off ‘phobes.

Lightborne Updates: UK Paperback Sneak Peek

I can’t help but want to talk about perhaps too many things in this post, as I know many of us are still reeling after last week. Perhaps shocked and blindsided, perhaps proven right in the worst way possible, perhaps teetering just above despair. Anyone celebrating is invited to leave at this point. Anyone lashing out, lighting fires, throwing blame at those more vulnerable than themselves, screeching “I told you so” as they rub salt into others’ open wounds, is invited to seek therapy.

It feels very strange and not a little delusional to be talking about my book at a time like this. Not that it doesn’t feel strange to talk about the future at all, given how little we can say for certain about it, other than that things look bleak. They certainly look bleak if, like me, you are a queer author who writes queer books. As I discussed at length in my previous blog post, we could easily be entering a dark age in terms of art and literature, an age in which books like mine will become hotly contested objects. But it’s one thing to worry about whether or not your book might still be legal in your home country a year from now, quite another to worry whether you, as a human being, will also be legal: your marriage, your passport, your family, your friends, your livelihood, your joy, your resistance, your thoughts, your dreams.

However, as a number of other queer authors have also pointed out, there’s no sense whatsoever in backing down before the fight has even truly begun. We are already tired, especially those of us who have been targeted before, but I hope we are far from giving up. Now is a time for those of us who can afford to be loud to scream with all our might.

Knowing my history as a queer person is a double-edged sword, because I’ve seen my community in its darkest hour, but I’ve also seen us emerge from that darkness, again and again. Whatever is coming, we have every right to feel dread in the pits of our stomachs, but also every reason to believe we will find ways to survive it. As Marlowe says in Lightborne, “to live is a form of vengeance, when so many have sought to destroy you.”

As long as humanity lives, we live. I’m sure it drives those who hate us crazy.

All that said, I’m extremely lucky to have exciting things to look forward to in 2025, among them the paperback launch of Lightborne in the UK. Come what may, in March there will be a whole new edition of the book out in the world, with a stunning new cover to rival the old one.

And now, without further ado:

We still have the beautiful gold accents that gave the original cover such a bold presence on the shelf, but now with a much darker, moodier atmosphere, and even a subtle appearance from Kit Marlowe himself. I chose this design among several options – it wasn’t easy, as they were all impressive – but I loved this one for that rich blue tapestry background, and the vintage feel of the design.

The back cover, I should add, is equally gorgeous:

Those who have read the book already will surely recognize Frizer’s knife peeking out! I fought for that knife, I will say, and I’m so glad I did. Authors – this is me advising you to fight for things you want on the cover. You might not get them, but you’ll have no regrets.

I’m beyond excited to see the paperback in its full glory, as I hope readers will be as well. Whatever dangers are barreling down at us from the future, I hope we’re able to find reasons to stay excited and engaged. After all, the world desperately needs that from us. Our anger and outrage is necessary, but so is our hope, our creativity, our joy.

It might mean the difference between simply getting through whatever comes next, and doing the work that desperately needs to be done: of building a better world than the one we started with.