Jack Baker is a young, driven engineer in a world where magic is an everyday occurrence. His best friend, Clare Fields, is an expatriate from a country that has no contact with the outside world. Their mentor, Ellis Graveworthy, is a famous novelist and a spy determined to convince them both to help him on a seemingly impossible mission.
Together, they will journey from Massachusetts to England, and through the air in Jack’s flying ship to Australia. Ellis has been charged to cross the heavily-guarded boundary into the “Dead Isle”, which has sealed itself off from contact with the outside world. His mission is to discover if it’s true that Australia is building a war fleet — but along the way the three of them will meet the young pirate princess Purva de la Fitte, become embroiled in Australian politics, and possibly touch off a long-awaited revolution.
Join Jack, Clare, Ellis, and Purva in a steampunk adventure spanning three continents, in search of the answer to a decades-old question: Why is there no magic in the Dead Isle?
The Dead Isle is currently in rewrite, slated as Sam’s next novel for publication after Trace. If you’d like to read the first draft of it and contribute your thoughts, you can find it here.
