The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker by Lauren James

My writing is primarily character and story-focused. It’s such a huge, complex topic that I didn’t know how to tackle it in a way which felt uplifting.

I’ve always wanted to write about climate change too, but I could never find a ‘way in’. I’ve written about space, extinction, and AIs. Lauren: I studied chemistry and physics at university, so my books have always included lots of science. At what point in your writing (or was it gradual?) that you decided you wanted to tackle the subject of climate change and other natural disasters on Earth? How many of your novels relate to that theme? Mary: First, you’ve written quite a few novels that have sold in several languages! And over 200,000 copies. And not everyone would like to see the Earth saved…Īs they navigate first love and family expectations, can the three teenagers pull off the ultimate heist and bring about a green rising? But in a time of widespread corruption and greed, there are plenty of profit-hungry organizations who want to use the Greenfingers for their own ends. Yet when Hester and Theo join Gabrielle and legions of other teenagers around the world in developing the strange new “Greenfingers” power, it becomes clear that to use their ability for good, they’ll need to learn to work together. On the face of it, the three have very little in common. Theo comes from a long line of fishermen, but his parents are struggling to make ends meet. Hester is the millionaire daughter of an oil tycoon and the face of the family business. Gabrielle is a climate-change activist who shoots to fame when she becomes the first teenager to display a supernatural ability to grow plants from her skin. Set in a near-future world on the brink of ecological catastrophe, Lauren James’ novel is a gripping, witty, and romantic call to arms. Green Rising is a YA fiction for 12+ audiences. Adam Kirsch, The Global Novel: Writing the World in the 21st Century The local gains dignity, and significance, insofar as it can be seen as a part of a worldwide phenomenon. Life lived here is experienced in its profound and often unsettling connections with life lived elsewhere, and everywhere. In this way, it is faithful to the way the global is actually lived–not through the abolition of place, but as a theme by which place is mediated.

The global novel exists, not as a genre separated from and opposed to other kinds of fiction, but as a perspective that governs the interpretation of experience.

The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker by Lauren James