Engn by Simon Kewin – Cover Reveal!

Several years ago I responded to an on-line appeal by the author Simon Kewin for a beta reader. I was looking for critical guidance myself, for an early version of Haunters, so we exchanged texts. I can only hope I was as helpful to Simon as he was to me! And now, I’m delighted to say that Simon’s book – Engn — is due to be published on the 15^th of July by the brilliant December House, with this fabulous cover:

I was immediately impressed by Engn, with its richly built world and creative use of language. Imagine Mervyn Peake (Gormenghast) and Scott Westerfield (Leviathan) and  Philip Reeve (Mortal Engines) meeting in a Zeppelin to dream up a steampunk Lord of the Rings, and you’d be some of the way there. I hope the book achieves the success it deserves. Here’s the blurb:

Finn’s childhood in the valley is idyllic, but across the plains lies a threat.

Engn is an ever-growing steam-powered fortress, that needs a never ending supply of workers. Generation after generation have been taken away, escorted into its depths by the mysterious and terrifying Ironclads, never to return.

The Masters of Engn first take Finn’s sister, then his best friend, Connor. He thinks he, at least, is safe – until the day the ironclads come to haul him away too.

Yet all is not lost, Finn has a plan. In the peace of the valley he and Connor made a pact. A promise to join the mythical Wreckers and end Engn’s tyranny from within.

But now on his own, lost and thwarted in the vastness of Engn, Finn begins to have doubts. Is Connor really working to destroy Engn?

Or has he become part of the machine?

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