All About Skyjack
My latest book as Lizzie Fry, Skyjack is out now. I launched it last week (Mar 17th) and I’ve been thrilled with how readers have got behind it already. I have received so many messages, so THANK YOU!
When Tom Kerevan of Cannibal Films asked me to write a novella for his Forgotten Women series, I immediately knew what I wanted to create. That’s rare for me – I usually like to road-test ideas and characters first – but Skyjack came to me easily, from Maddy, my precocious and resentful protagonist, to the supporting cast and plot.
A Quick Backdrop
Skyjack was originally set in the storyworld of Tear Me Apart, a British dystopian film set in a near-future where 99% of women have perished, either from a mysterious event called “The Fall” or at the hands of men. In the film, two brothers discover Molly, possibly the last woman alive, and clash over her fate against Cornwall’s dramatic coastline.
In Skyjack, a handful of women still survive, but life is brutal. Many are treated as commodities, hunted by savage “Raider” gangs. Others band together, wary of men altogether.
Not all men are enemies, though. Some, especially former soldiers, protect women and children in rural strongholds, willing to die to keep them safe.
Enter Lynmouth
Maddy lives in one such fort, perched in the picturesque seaside village of Lynmouth, Devon, in a cliffside hotel turned sanctuary. Roads are blocked with boulders, and from their high vantage point, they watch for Raiders.
But there’s one thing they didn’t account for – the sky.
Where the idea came from
Skyjack sprang from three things that had been simmering in my mind for years:
- Lynmouth itself – A real place I love, dubbed “Little Switzerland” and visited by Percy and Mary Shelley. Its isolation and beauty made it perfect for a post-apocalyptic stronghold. (If you one of my veteran readers, you’ll know I’ve written Lynmouth into several of my stories before, including Never Have I Ever (as LV Hay) and my free trio of shorts, The Lynmouth Stories).
- Devon’s military presence – Growing up around soldiers and training grounds gave me a fascination with discipline, strength, and conflict – qualities I threaded into Maddy and her father, Bill, the fort’s leader.
- A very unlucky parachutist I saw – One sunny motorway drive, a swirling parachute appeared overhead as I watched via the sunroof. The parachutist landed miraculously unharmed in a barracks nearby, arms raised in surrender as soldiers ran towards him, guns raised. They (not unreasonably) must have thought he was chute-bombing them with sinister motives in mind. That image of danger and survival sparked the central action of Skyjack.
So when the brief came: “female characters, in a rural area like Devon, under attack,” I didn’t hesitate. Skyjack was waiting to be written, a story almost whole in my imagination, ready to leap from page to reality.
Grab Your Copy Of Skyjack Now!
Four years after The Fall, women are almost extinct – and the few who remain are hidden as prized ‘assets’ inside fortified enclaves.
Maddy is one of them: watched, protected, and utterly trapped. The Fort has survived because no outsider has found it … until today.
A red parachute spirals from the sky. The boy they drag inside is malnourished, terrified, and marked with a word that chills the fort to its core: SKYJACK.
The Skyjack Raiders are ruthless, airborne, and unstoppable. If this boy escaped them, they’ll come looking. If he didn’t… they’re coming anyway.
Maddy must confront dangerous truths about the world beyond the walls, the leaders she depends on, and herself. Isolation kept them alive. Now it might kill them.
Skyjack is a gripping dystopian thriller with a fierce heroine, raw tension, and impossible choices.
CLICK HERE (or on any of the pics in this blog post) to grab your copy now for just 99p! (Paperback also available).
