A new novel by author David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, will be published by Sceptre in September 2014.



The "rich and strange" novel will follow the story of Holly Sykes, who runs away from home in 1984 and 60 years later can be found in the far west of Ireland, raising a granddaughter as the world’s climate collapses.



Sceptre said: “In between, Holly is encountered as a barmaid in a Swiss resort by an undergraduate sociopath in 1991; has a child with a foreign correspondent covering the Iraq War in 2003; and, widowed, becomes the confidante of a self-obsessed author of fading powers and reputation during the present decade." Holly’s life is repeatedly intersected by a slow-motion war between a cult of predatory soul-decanters and a band of vigilantes. According to Sceptre: “Holly begins as an unwitting pawn in this war – but may prove to be its decisive weapon.”



The publisher said: “The arc of a life, a social seismograph, a fantasy of shadows and an inquiry into aging, mortality and survival, The Bone Clocks could only have been written by David Mitchell.”



Sceptre has published all Mitchell's novels, including Cloud Atlas, which was made into a film in 2012, number9dream, Black Swan Green and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.



Earlier this year Mitchell worked with his wife Keiko Yoshida to translate The Reason I Jump (Sceptre) by Japanese writer Naoki Higishida, who has autism and wrote the book when he was 13 years old.



The Bone Clocks will be published in hardback on September 4th 2014.

Photo credit: Murdo Macleod