In Universes
Published on 12. June 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-80495-407-2 (ISBN)
Description
'An explosion of creative beauty and heart . . . a massively talented writer arriving ready to awe' NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH, author of CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS
'Dazzling and inventive . . . a breathtaking introduction to a brilliant new voice' DANIELLE EVANS, author of THE OFFICE OF HISTORICAL CORRECTIONS
'A soul-stirring debut' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
***
Raffi is a physicist who spends their days removing stars from pictures of the night sky, dreaming about parallel universes. In this one, they're falling for a queer sculptor named Britt who they almost met when they were kids - if only they'd had the courage to say hello.
What if Raffi had said hello? The question catapults Raffi across alternate universes, each an answer to the question of what their life might be like if things had happened just a little differently.
Each universe is beautiful and dangerous for Raffi. Where apocalyptic landscapes teem with bears, mothers fracture into hordes of animals, and glistening sandcastles stand tall enough to live inside. Across them all, Raffi searches for a life that feels their own. But everything eventually leads them back to Britt: the girl they loved and lost.
IN UNIVERSES is a kaleidoscopic and tender navigation of love, queerness and belonging that bursts with imagination and hope.
'Dazzling and inventive . . . a breathtaking introduction to a brilliant new voice' DANIELLE EVANS, author of THE OFFICE OF HISTORICAL CORRECTIONS
'A soul-stirring debut' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
***
Raffi is a physicist who spends their days removing stars from pictures of the night sky, dreaming about parallel universes. In this one, they're falling for a queer sculptor named Britt who they almost met when they were kids - if only they'd had the courage to say hello.
What if Raffi had said hello? The question catapults Raffi across alternate universes, each an answer to the question of what their life might be like if things had happened just a little differently.
Each universe is beautiful and dangerous for Raffi. Where apocalyptic landscapes teem with bears, mothers fracture into hordes of animals, and glistening sandcastles stand tall enough to live inside. Across them all, Raffi searches for a life that feels their own. But everything eventually leads them back to Britt: the girl they loved and lost.
IN UNIVERSES is a kaleidoscopic and tender navigation of love, queerness and belonging that bursts with imagination and hope.
Reviews / Votes
Blends great storytelling with serious contemplation of what the many-worlds theory could mean for questions of identity, life, death, and more . . . Read this when you need a bit of hope and uplift * Lit Hub * North's ability to capture the essence of queer experiences with authenticity and empathy sets this work apart, offering readers a tender and insightful look into the myriad ways we seek to find our place in the world * Glamour * An extraordinary debut novel where we see the same key characters lead lives across the multiverse. A little bit WandaVision, a little bit Everything Everywhere All at Once, this is a story I'm dying to see dramatized * ELLE * Time-bending, mind-expanding * People * A soul-stirring debut . . . This crackling chronicle of queer love is a must read * Publishers Weekly * Bafflingly good. In Universes is an exhilarating, disorienting fabulist extravaganza to which we can only, and happily, submit. But it is also, secretly - and brilliantly - kind of a meta-novel about the melancholia of science fiction itself -- Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the Fox Daring, brilliant, and revelatory, In Universes scatters its characters' stories across the multiverse, showing us every one of the infinite lives we might live. It's a miracle of physics and art, filled with wonder and grief, hope and regret, survival and romance and loss. By its end, we know: the best of all possible worlds is this one where we get to read Emet North's writing -- Julia Phillips, bestselling author of Disappearing Earth In Universes has a wonderous way of taking the full expanse of the heart (vast! unending!) and collapsing it into a jeweled beauty you can hold in your hands. This novel is brainy and surprising and - in a cartwheeling, star-spinning way - completely real -- Ramona Ausubel, author of The Last Animal A magical, bighearted, genre-jumping ode to queerness and the breaking and re-making of reality * Bustle *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cornerstone
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
172 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80495-407-2 (9781804954072)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Emet North has lived in a dozen states over the past decade and has no fixed residence, though they feel most at home in the mountains. In previous lives, they've worked in an observational cosmology lab on a grant from NASA, taught snowboarding in Montana, researched Lie algebras, led wine tastings, waited tables, trained horses, and written a thesis on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. They translate from Spanish to English with a particular focus on queer and trans voices and are always looking for new projects.