Skip to content
Answering Your Questions About Reactor: Right here.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Everything in one handy email.
When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

Roadtrips and Truthseeking: Revealing the Cover for K.M. Szpara’s First, Become Ashes

Reactor

Home / Roadtrips and Truthseeking: Revealing the Cover for K.M. Szpara’s First, Become Ashes
Books cover reveals

Roadtrips and Truthseeking: Revealing the Cover for K.M. Szpara’s First, Become Ashes

By

Published on May 1, 2020

Photo credit: Karen Osborne
Author KM Szpara and First, Become Ashes book cover
Photo credit: Karen Osborne

We’re thrilled to present the cover for K.M. Szpara’s First, Become Ashes, a novel about following your beliefs and finding love on the road. First, Become Ashes will release from Tor.com Publishing in April 2021.

The Fellowship raised Lark to kill monsters.
His partner betrayed them to the Feds.
But Lark knows his magic is real, and he’ll do anything to complete his quest.

K. M. Szpara follows Docile, one of the most anticipated science fiction novels of 2020, with First, Become Ashes, a fantastic standalone adventure that blends pain and pleasure and will make readers question what is real, and what is magical.

Lark spent the first twenty-four years, nine months, and three days of his life training for a righteous quest: to rid the world of monsters. Alongside his partner Kane, he wore the cage and endured the scourge in order to develop his innate magic. He never thought that when Kane left, he’d next see him in the company of FBI agents and a SWAT team. He never dreamed that the leader of the Fellowship of the Anointed would be brought up on charges of abuse and assault.

He never expected the government would tell him that the monsters aren’t real—that there is no magic, and all the pain was for nothing.

Lark isn’t ready to give up. He is determined to fulfill his quest, to defeat the monsters he was promised. Along the way he will grapple with the past, confront love, and discover his long-buried truth.

Buy the Book

First, Become Ashes

First, Become Ashes

First, Become Ashes book cover
Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill; Cover photograph (meadowlark) by Frode Jacobsen/Shutterstock.com

 

Applicable AO3 (Archive Of Our Own) tags include (but are not limited to):

  • CW: Dubious consent/nonconsensual sex
  • CW: Cult-inflicted trauma
  • M/M
  • Canon Polycule
  • Comic-Con meet cute
  • [ASMR] Professional Cosplayer Washes and Braids your Hair
  • Cock cages and keyholding
  • Motel magic and social media spellcraft
  • Roadside S&M
  • Wizard-on-monster violence

 

Hugo and Nebula finalist K.M. Szpara is a queer and trans author who lives in Baltimore, MD. His debut novel is Docile; his short fiction and essays appear in UncannyLightspeedStrange Horizons, and more. Kellan has a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, which he totally uses at his day job as a paralegal. You can find him on the Internet at kmszpara.com and on Twitter at @kmszpara.

About the Author

About Author Mobile

Tor.com

Author

Learn More About Tor.com
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments