“With her latest, Whiteley takes on our fascination with fame and celebrities, and the terrible price we pay when we’re forced to reinvent ourselves.”
Rose Allington suffers from a very strange disease, an illness in which she sheds her skin. These sheds occur quickly, and ultimately change everything about her, who she loves, and trusts. The fact of her life is that she can move on, casting away attachments of her previous self.
But memories of old lives can be bought, if you connect with the right people.
Now Rose is a bodyguard, and one of her former clients, well-known actor Max Black, is addicted to a drug that prevents the moult. His skin is priceless; moulting could wreck his entire career.
Someone steals one of Max’s priceless skins, and it looks like it was an inside job. Now Max needs Rose’s help, even if she’s not the same person she was before.
Why we’re excited about this book:
Aliya Whiteley doesn’t write within one genre, allowing her stories to escape the confines of convention to become something intimate and undoubtedly strange. The author of The Beauty, Greensmith, The Arrival of Missives, and Skein Island, her short fiction has graced the pages of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, The Dark, Interzone, The Guardian, as well as the anthologies Unsung Stories’ 2084 and Lonely Planet’s Better than Fiction. With her latest, Whiteley takes on our fascination with fame and celebrities, and the terrible price we pay when we’re forced to reinvent ourselves. Helen Marshall (The Migration) says: “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.”, and Nina Allan (The Rift) says: “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.”
Forthcoming from Titan Books and releasing 23 February 2021, The Loosening Skin by Aliya Whiteley is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA
