I’m thrilled to announce that Tor.com Publishing has acquired Katharine Duckett’s debut novella Miranda in Milan, a haunting story that reimagines the consequences of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
After the tempest, after the reunion, after her father drowned his books, Miranda was meant to enter a brave new world. Naples awaited her, and Ferdinand, and a throne. Instead she finds herself in Milan, in her father’s castle, surrounded by hostile servants who treat her like a ghost. Whispers cling to her like spiderwebs, whispers that carry her dead mother’s name. And though he promised to give away his power, Milan is once again contorting around Prospero’s dark arts. With only Dorothea, her sole companion and confidant to aid her, Miranda must cut through the mystery and find the truth about her father, her mother, and herself.
Katharine Duckett’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Apex Magazine, Interzone, Uncanny Magazine, PseudoPod, and various anthologies, and her short story “Sexagesimal” was Apex Magazine’s 2012 Story of the Year. She hails from East Tennessee and has lived in the steppes of Kazakhstan, the coastal regions of Turkey, and the woods of Massachusetts. Miranda in Milan is her first book. In addition to writing, Katharine works as the Publicity Manager for Tor.com Publishing. She currently resides in Brooklyn with her wife.
Katharine had this to say about the sale:
The Tempest is my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays (as I’ve previously written about for Tor.com), and part of the reason I find it fascinating is that I always wondered what happened to Miranda when she left her isolated island home and attempted to navigate the complexities of life in the Italian court after years of bad wizard parenting. Add a little magic, romance, and the pressing mystery of why Prospero was really exiled from Milan, and you have my vision of what comes after the storm. I hope you enjoy spending time in Miranda’s world as much as I did while writing this book, and I’m thrilled to be working with Carl Engle-Laird, one of the best editors around, on this book.
As the son of a Shakespearean, a former Gonzalo on the high school stage, and a colleague and friend of Katharine’s, it’s hard to imagine a book better suited to me than Miranda in Milan. The pleasure of working with Katharine over the last five years is matched only by the joy of discovering the depth of her writing talent. Miranda in Milan will blow you away with its curiosity, its kindness, and its beauty.
Miranda in Milan is expected to publish in early 2019.
