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Announcing Self-Portrait With Nothing I'm thrilled to announce Tordotcom will be publishing my debut novel, Self-Portrait With Nothing, in 2022. A second novel, currently untitled, will follow in 2023. |
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Self-Portrait With Nothing
Twenty-two years ago, the reclusive painter Ula Frost became famous for the outrageous claims that her portraits could summon their subjects’ doppelgangers from parallel universes. Now, she’s gone missing.
Her daughter, Pepper Rafferty, abandoned on the local veterinarian’s front porch as an infant, has never met her biological mother and wants nothing to do with her, so much so that she’s kept her mother’s identity a secret from everyone in her life, including her loving adoptive mothers and stable and supportive husband Ike.
Still, Pepper has always preferred her fantasies of other universes to reality. Was there a parallel universe in which Ula decided she was worth keeping? A universe in which Ula’s rejection didn’t hurt too much to share? A universe in which she was more confident, more accomplished, better able to accept love?
In the wake of Ula’s disappearance, Pepper is revealed to be the painter’s sole heir. Suddenly she must face her loved ones’ hurt at how much she has withheld, while contending with the Everett Group, a sinister organization whose interest in Ula’s work extends beyond art. When the Everett Group’s threats become explicit, Pepper realizes that, prepared or not, it is the Pepper of this universe who will have to find Ula.
Racing from Connecticut to the UK to Poland to rescue the mother she’s never known, Pepper will learn more than she ever imagined possible about the ways in which she is her mother’s daughter, the dangers of wishing for a different reality, and power of her imperfect life to sustain her.
Twenty-two years ago, the reclusive painter Ula Frost became famous for the outrageous claims that her portraits could summon their subjects’ doppelgangers from parallel universes. Now, she’s gone missing.
Her daughter, Pepper Rafferty, abandoned on the local veterinarian’s front porch as an infant, has never met her biological mother and wants nothing to do with her, so much so that she’s kept her mother’s identity a secret from everyone in her life, including her loving adoptive mothers and stable and supportive husband Ike.
Still, Pepper has always preferred her fantasies of other universes to reality. Was there a parallel universe in which Ula decided she was worth keeping? A universe in which Ula’s rejection didn’t hurt too much to share? A universe in which she was more confident, more accomplished, better able to accept love?
In the wake of Ula’s disappearance, Pepper is revealed to be the painter’s sole heir. Suddenly she must face her loved ones’ hurt at how much she has withheld, while contending with the Everett Group, a sinister organization whose interest in Ula’s work extends beyond art. When the Everett Group’s threats become explicit, Pepper realizes that, prepared or not, it is the Pepper of this universe who will have to find Ula.
Racing from Connecticut to the UK to Poland to rescue the mother she’s never known, Pepper will learn more than she ever imagined possible about the ways in which she is her mother’s daughter, the dangers of wishing for a different reality, and power of her imperfect life to sustain her.