We are excited to announce that Olivia Thomas-Neher has signed with us her dreamlike fantasy with an unmissable quest, The Clockmaker and the Shrike.
Olivia Thomas-Neher is a debut novelist drawn to the strange, the dreamlike, and the supernatural in fiction. Currently, Olivia is a UK-based English teacher, where she shares her passion for literature with the next generation of readers and writers. Teaching continues to provide a daily reminder of the power of literature and the formative potential of a good story – as well as a great number of anecdotes from the classroom. When not teaching or staring despairingly at a blank Word document, Olivia can be found wandering bookshops, reading in cafes, and sitting in a sunny pub garden with her friends, complaining about lesson planning.
The Clockmaker and the Shrike is a surrealist fantasy set in a world where the boundaries of reality are constantly shifting. It explores themes of identity and loyalty while asking the stark question of how far it is acceptable to go for those you love.
When the clockmaker’s daughter takes on her father’s old role, she is not sure what to think. She finds herself in a place where paintings act as portals, her friends walk into each other’s dreams, and she wears the face of a bird in place of her own. Among the strangeness of her new life, she finds herself drawn to the mysterious Shrike as questions about his past and the future of her new world build.
Unable to tear herself away from her new world, when the Lord of the Dead attacks, she follows him on a quest to the enigmatic Realm of the Dead.
