For a bit over a year now, I’ve been working on a sequel to ARCHIVIST WASP, titled LATCHKEY. I parted ways with Small Beer Press and went looking for new publishers, and I’m delighted to announce that LATCHKEY will be coming out in Summer 2018 from Mythic Delirium Books.

I had a ton of fun writing this one. It’s a bigger book than AW (almost 111,000 words vs. just under 84,000) and has more characters, more adventurin’, more general shenanigans.

From Mythic Delirium’s press release:

Mythic Delirium Books proudly announces the acquisition of Nicole Kornher-Stace‘s fantasy novel Latchkey. We’ve set a goal of a mid-July 2018 release for this thought-provoking, genre-blending, action-packed tale set in the ruins of a high-tech civilization, where gods govern the sky and ghosts thirst for blood.

Latchkey continues the story begun in Kornher-Stace’s widely acclaimed Archivist Wasp (an Andre Norton Award finalist selected by Kirkus Reviews as one of the Best Teen Books of 2015.)

In Latchkey, Isabel, once known as Wasp, has become leader of the fearsome upstarts, the teen girl acolytes who are adjusting to a new way of life after the overthrow of the sadistic Catchkeep-priest. They live in an uneasy alliance with the town of Sweetwater — an alliance that will be tested to its limits by the dual threats of ruthless raiders from the Waste and a deadly force from the Before-time that awaits in long-hidden tunnels.

Years ago Isabel befriended a nameless ghost, a supersoldier from the Before-time with incredible powers even after death, and their adventure together in the underworld gave her the strength and knowledge to change the brutal existence of the Catchkeep acolytes for the better. To save Sweetwater, Isabel will have to unlock the secrets of the twisted experimental program from centuries gone by that created the supersoldier and killed his friends: the Latchkey Project.

In addition to Archivist Wasp and Latchkey, Kornher-Stace is the author of the novel Desideria, novelette The Winter Triptych, poetry collection Demon Lovers and Other Difficulties, and numerous short stories. “Last Chance,” set in the world of Archivist Wasp, appeared in the July 2017 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine.

In a way, our publication of Latchkey serves as a homecoming. Kornher-Stace’s story “On the Leitmotif of the Trickster Constellation in Northern Hemispheric Star Charts, Post-Apocalypse,” the seed from which Archivist Wasp grew, appeared in 2013 in our anthology Clockwork Phoenix 4.

Recent publications from Mythic Delirium Books include the World Fantasy Award-winning Bone Swans: Stories by C.S.E. Cooney and the World Fantasy Award-nominated anthology Clockwork Phoenix 5. Latchkey will be the first novel published through our imprint. We look forward to the adventure.

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