Алия Уайтли: The Loosening Skin

“Stark, poetic, forthright and alive with the numinous.”

“Beguiling, brilliant and odd. Not since Alan Garner have such expansive themes been so keenly tied to place and so evocatively explored.”

“An intriguing ‘what if?’ of a tale, one that keeps us transfixed and wondering right up to the final pages and with an ending that won’t easily be forgotten.”

The new collection of beautiful, strange and disarming short stories from the award-winning Aliya Whiteley, deftly unpeels the strangeness of everyday life with her trademark wit. Witness the future of farming in a new Ice Age, or the artist bringing life to glass; the many-eyed monsters we carry and the secret cities inside our bodies. Fascinating, and unlike any other writer working today.

“I firmly believe that Aliya Whiteley is one of the most original, innovative and intelligent writers of speculative fiction working in Britain today.”

“We can expect great things from Aliya Whiteley.”

TITANBOOKS.COM

“ The Loosening Skin is a sensuous, thought provoking meditation on love that deserves not only a second read, but a third as well. This book will cement Aliya Whiteley’s reputation as one of the finest of a new generation of weird fiction writers. More, please.”

“Strange, confounding and satisfyingly original, Whiteley’s new novel is an exploration of relationships and the corrosive effect of time. A speculative enquiry into the meaning of freedom itself, The Loosening Skin will surprise and delight Whiteley’s existing readership and new fans equally. Above all, this is a book that will excite intense discussion.”

“Aliya Whiteley’s fiction simultaneously scintillates with ideas, skips back and forth across genre boundaries with an ease and audacity that is glorious to behold, and retains such a sense of immediacy and emotional integrity that her readers are drawn into her worlds body and soul. She has the enviable ability to explore big ideas in the most intimate of settings, and to create wholly original realities that leap instantly from the page. For me, she is very much at the forefront of the new wave of UK genre writers.”

“ The Loosening Skin works as a quirky new weird thriller, but its triumph lies in the way Whiteley uses the metaphor of shedding skin to examine the tortured process of love and attachment.”

“Wow. Just wow… There’s something so easy about Whiteley’s prose despite constantly delivering a dense philosophical gut punch. Her characters are rich but mysterious, flawed and fascinating. The plot twists and turns, blindsiding the reader at every turn while feeling as though it could never really have gone any other way.

The Loosening Skin , for me, is what speculative fiction should be.”

The Beauty

The Arrival of Missives

Skein Island

From the Neck Up (September 2021)

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The Loosening Skin

Print edition ISBN: 9781789092332

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789092349

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition: February 2021

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Aliya Whiteley 2018, 2021

Aliya Whiteley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.