Fifteen-year-old Nick has just finished his GSCEs and is stuck at home in the seaside village of Brexenham. What starts as a boring summer quickly transforms, as Nick meets Jude Fletcher, a wild and otherworldly boy. Nick is pulled into another world, but the disappearance of local girl, Jemma Cox, hangs over the community, a disappearance that runs farther back than they realise.

Buy Jude by Elin Heron today at Lucent Dreaming or at your favourite bookshop!

Lucent Dreaming Press Release for JUDE

Lucent Dreaming to publish debut novel ‘Jude’ by Elin Heron

We’re honoured to share that we will be publishing our first novel this September 2024. Fiction Editor Samiha Meah officially acquired Jude by Elin Heron in April 2023.

When asked about why she wrote this story, Elin Heron tells us

‘As a writer I am concerned with landscape and magic and Jude is a novel where I explore these themes, alongside the ancient and the frightening, on the backdrop of a modern love story between two teenage boys.

Jude is a novel with a question at its heart, one which all teenagers and young adults ask […] ‘What space is there in the world for me?’ In the wake of the pandemic and in an apparently increasingly hostile world, it is a question which even adults may be pondering. Living online and indoors, so many of us feel disembodied and disconnected and with no real sense of belonging. Jude explores what it feels like to reconnect with the earth, with another person, and, through the character of an ambiguous wood spirit, imagines what the natural world, ambivalent as [it] may be to our existence, requires from humans. The blossoming of love comes from the same place in us as our sense of awe and wonder at the natural world. Both draw us out of ourselves, both make us profoundly aware that we cannot exist wrapped up only in our own concerns.’

We describe Jude as a Young Adult, LGBTQ+ Fantasy novel. The story follows fifteen-year-old Nick who has just finished his GSCEs and is stuck at home in the seaside village of Brexenham. What starts as a boring summer quickly transforms, as Nick meets Jude Fletcher, a wild and otherworldly boy. Nick is pulled into another world, but the disappearance of local girl, Jemma Cox hangs over the community, a disappearance that runs farther back than they realise.

Samiha explains

‘Acquiring our first official novel as a new publisher was a daunting task, but when I first read the manuscript for Jude I just knew that this was what we were looking for. Elin Heron has such a wonderful style of writing, the perfect blend of dreamy descriptions that transfix you and just the right amount of tension to keep you at the edge of your seat! More than that, Jude is a novel that sits outside its genre; it is not just a love story, or coming of age, or mythological fantasy – it is a tale that takes all the best parts of those and does it in a way that feels balanced and fresh. It was important to us to put something out in the world that felt true and unique to its voice, and I think this book does just that. This will be Elin Heron’s debut novel, as well as ours, and it has been a pleasure to work on it. I cannot wait to see it out in the world!’

Jude is due to be published 30 September 2024, and is available to preorder via your favourite local bookshop, online and via our website.

ISBN: 9781739660994
Price: £12.00
Publication Date: 30 September 2024