Angry Robot Books is delighted to announce the acquisition of Laura Elliott’s Awakened where the world has ended, overrun by the maddened victims of an experiment to allow us to go without sleep. In the Tower of London, the last bastion of humanity, a small group of scientists struggle to find a cure and to live with the guilt.
Publication Date: August 2025
In anticipation of this upcoming release, author Laura Elliott had the following to say: “Only a year or so after graduating University I became mostly housebound following a series of viruses. Awakened came about painstakingly afterwards, written on my notes app while lying in bed, scribbled on pieces of paper around the house, and eventually growing into a book that I often thought would never be finished. While it is a dystopia that pits humanity against the monsters they’ve created, it’s also a meditation on society’s push for productivity at the expense of an individual’s health, and the evils we might commit to save someone we love. I’m so delighted that Angry Robot Books took a chance on my deeply dark story about monsters, medicine, disability and care, and I can’t wait for readers to meet Thea and the calamity she helped to unleash.”
Editor Simon Spanton expressed his excitement for Awakened, adding: “Awakened snagged me, then haunted me. Laura’s expert plotting and gift for intense, dreamlike flights of terror kept me locked into the fraught lives of her characters as the true nature of the horror they, and we, face was slowly revealed. I loved that the real waking nightmare at the centre of the book is all too real. It’s so exciting for Angry Robot to have the prospect of introducing such a fantastic new talent to readers.”
Representing Laura Elliott, agent Caro Clarke expands on what we know about the book so far, stating: “‘I completely fell for Laura’s haunting book Awakened as soon as it hit my inbox. Reminiscent of Frankenstein and The Yellow Wallpaper, it takes us through a world where society has decided to eliminate sleep to make humans more productive and the horrifying repercussions this has on humankind. The most original and thought-provoking speculative fiction at the moment is coming from disabled and chronically ill writers who challenge our expectations of what a future can look like if we continue on this path. I couldn’t be more excited to partner with the Angry Robot team to launch this bright new voice!”
Read on for the full blurb and to find out more about new, exciting AR author Laura Elliott!
ABOUT THE BOOK
A year ago, a group of scientists developed a neural chip to allow us to turn off sleep. Used first by the military, those fitted with the chip developed hyped and strengthened metabolisms. Soon everyone had one. You could turn the chip off.
Until one day you couldn’t.
Deprived of the sanity that sleep brings, the world quickly fell apart. Now, marooned in the Tower of London, a small group of surviving scientists are struggling to find a cure. Among them is Thea Chares who spends her days consumed by guilt for her part in the experiment and haunted by what happened to her mother during her long illness.
When two survivors show up, they bring with them the hope of a new start and the danger of a final ending. Events spiral into a fever-dream of hallucination, violence, dark attraction, a shocking reveal and redemption. Of sorts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Elliott is a journalist and writer on disability and health issues. Laura has ME and this has informed her writing and her career. She has written articles on disability and politics for The Guardian, The Metro, iNews and ByLine Times. Her stories have appeared in Strix Magazine, STORGY and Cloister Fox, and creative non-fic and essays in Boudicca Press’ Disturbing the Body anthology, Monstrous Regiment’s So Hormonal.
You may also like
Unveiling OUR GIFTED HEARTS
THE HAUNTING OF WILLIAM THORN; introducing the first horror novel from #1 Amazon bestselling author Ben Alderson!
Revealing the final cover for AWAKENED by Laura Elliott! 🪶
Announcing THE SHADOWS HAVE TEETH and THE DARKNESS BITES BACK by Ben Alderson and Laura R. Samotin 🧛🏼
It’s cover reveal time! THE ELLYRIAN CODE by B. F. Peterson
📢 Acquisition Announcement & Cover Reveal! 📢 TERMS OF SERVICE by Ciel Pierlot – perfect for fans of THE HUNTER’S GAMBIT!
Revealing the final cover for THE SORROW OF THE SEA by Stephen Aryan!
Announcing PROJECT HANUMAN by Stewart Hotston!
📢 Acquisition Announcement! 📢 QUEEN OF THE DEAD by Sarah Broadway (Winter 2025)
Supporting The Broken Binding Press