Earlyfate

Nat Reeve is a novelist, and a Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. Nat has a PhD in Victorian Studies from Royal Holloway, and their debut novel Nettleblack was published by Cipher Press in 2022. Nettleblack follows a gang of queer misfit Victorian detectives causing chaos in a small country town, and its upcoming sequel, Earlyfate, follows a dandyish nonbinary cravat designer ruining said detectives' week in every way possible.

“Nat Reeve's Earlyfate takes us back to the chosen family of the Dallyangle Division, still suturing the wounds of ferrets and violent sibling duo the Sweetings. The book is a whorl of mystery, homicidal aristocracy, backstreets and bicycles wielded as weapons, patterned in the most devastatingly propulsive prose. There is intrigue with ferrets; profanities with fruits; restraints both erotic and carceral; and writing sharper than the keen edge of a family heirloom sword. It's a paisley of a novel, seamlessly brought together by a novelist and protagonist cravat designer with the most impeccable charm.” - Prue Bussey-Chamberlain, author of Bone Horn "A tour-de-force of playfulness, earnestness and delight, Earlyfate is an immersive joy: clever, propulsive, swaggering and beguiling. This is at once an homage to the great fiction of the nineteenth century and something utterly new. I was completely won over by it.” – Nell Stevens, author of Briefly, A Delicious Life "What a dramatic and delightful romp through the Victorian era! This is history like you have never seen it before: Nat Reeve shows you what is possible when we brush the dust off history and see the past for the lively, exciting, queer place that it was!" Christine Lehnen, author of Remembering Women “Nat Reeve is a breath of fresh air in historical fiction; Queer, humorous, light-hearted whilst also being deftly profound. Earlyfate is the darker, more emotionally wracked sibling to Nettleblack, an excellent, anguished companion that I was delighted to feast upon. I was captured heart and soul by Pip and Cassandra's narrative journeys, exploring the heavy social impact of queerness and race in the 19th Century while making me laugh every second page. Nat Reeve is a wordsmith of the highest order; an imagination not only capable of giving new words and turning a heartbreaking moment into a heartwarming joke, but also creating a historical prose style that is both an echo of some of the greatest English storytellers and accessible to the modern reader. Reeve's delicate handling of prose is superb and inspiring; I will always turn to a Nat Reeve creation with eager anticipation and joy.” - Emma Hinds, author of The Knowing “What a joy to be submerged once again in Nat Reeve's prodigious, idiosyncratic and radical imagination. Earlyfate is an immensely satisfying tangle of neo-Victorian intrigue, queer self-discovery, the fight for transformative justice and the achingly true-to-life depiction of how marginalised people - and family members - can hurt each other as we muddle our way towards solidarity. Come for the swordstick-wielding, stay for the reflexivity and tenderness. I'm so glad I read it.” - Kit Heyam, author of Before We Were Trans