New Patrick Ness novel Release coming next year

A new novel by Patrick Ness, entitled Release, will be published by Walker Books in May 2017.

The novel explores relationships in all their complexity through the character of teenager Adam Thorn and takes place over the course of a single day.

Ness said he was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. "I feel like I can't write a good book unless I scare myself, and what's scarier than taking your inspiration from one of the finest novels ever written in English? The intense focus of Mrs Dalloway, its psychological power, seemed an unexpectedly superb way to portray a YA character.

"Adam Thorn is having what will turn out to be the most unsettling, difficult day of his life, with relationships fracturing, a harrowing incident at work, and a showdown between this gay teen and his preacher father that changes everything. It's a day of confrontation, running, sex (Judy Blume's brilliant and ground-breaking Forever is another inspiration), love, heartbreak, and maybe, just maybe, hope. He won't come out of it unchanged. And all the while, lurking at the edges of the story, something extraordinary and unsettling is on a collision course.”

He added: "It's by far the most personal novel I've ever written. The one I wanted to read when I was a teen and never got."

The novel is part of a multi-book contract Ness has with Walker, which has world English rights. His agent is Michelle Kass and the book will be published in the US by HarperCollins.

As well as being an author, Ness also writes for TV and film. His Doctor Who spin-off, Class, will air in the autumn, and the film of "A Monster Calls", for which he wrote the screenplay, is out next year.

His latest novel, The Rest of us Just Live Here, was shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2016 and the YA Book Prize 2016.

Denise Johnstone-Burt, publisher at Walker, said: “Somewhere between writing scripts for the movie adaptation of "A Monster Calls" and the BBC Doctor Who spin off "Class", Patrick has managed to deliver an astounding new novel. This emotional story is a moving love song – celebrating, understanding and confronting relationships. It will surprise his fans and delight new readers around the world.”