Pan Mac gets ‘pulse-pounding’ Upgrade from Crouch

Pan Macmillan has landed the new “pulse-pounding" speculative thriller Upgrade from Blake Crouch. 

Associate publisher Wayne Brookes acquired world English rights, excluding the US and Canada, from David Hale-Smith and Alexis Hurley at Inkwell Management. Upgrade will be published in hardback on 21st July 2022 with the mass-market edition coming in January 2023.  

The synopsis reads: “’You are the next step in human evolution.’ At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little…sharper. More able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorising and needing less sleep. Before long, he can’t deny it: something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways. The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy. Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one to inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.”  

Brookes said: “Blake Crouch is frankly a genius. This novel, while being the stuff of nightmares, is also the stuff of bestsellers. Blake’s imagination and style astound me in so many ways. After the ongoing success of Dark Matter (Pan Macmillan) and then Recursion (Pan Macmillan) you wonder what next? Upgrade is what came next and it’s nothing short of a masterpiece. If ever there were a successor to Michael Crichton and Philip K Dick, then Blake Crouch is it.”  

Hale-Smith commented: “Blake and I are delighted to be back in business with our wonderful UK publishing partner, Pan Macmillan.”  

Crouch added: “Upgrade was the hardest book I’ve ever written, and I’m beyond thrilled to be teaming-up again with Wayne Brookes and the great people at Pan Macmillan to bring this wild story to the UK, Australia and India.”