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Also by Becky Chambers:

As You Wake, Break the Shell, October 2026
Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, July 2022
Hardcover / e-Book
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, July 2021
Hardcover / e-Book
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, April 2021
Paperback / e-Book
Record of a Spaceborn Few, August 2018
Paperback / e-Book
A Closed and Common Orbit, March 2017
Paperback / e-Book (reprint)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, July 2016
Paperback / e-Book

AS YOU WAKE, BREAK THE SHELL
By: Becky Chambers

Narrator: Megan Gage

A Novel – A Heartfelt Science Fiction Romance of Found Family and Stubborn Survival

Harper Voyager
October 2026
On Sale: October 13, 2026
Featuring: Signy; Cora
480 pages
ISBN: 0062936069
EAN: 9780062936066
Kindle: B0GFBB4YYR
Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook
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Fantasy | Science Fiction | LGBTQ

Explore a universe of stubborn survival and found family, of persistent danger and quiet wonder in the first installment of a heartfelt new duology from Hugo Award–winning author Becky Chambers.

Life on the resource‑poor planet of Fortune is challenging, but for its inhabitants, it’s home. For two of them, Signy and Cora, this home might no longer be enough.

Signy is a brilliant but reclusive botanist who bio‑prints medicine from her small plant shop, often bending the rules to help those the system leaves behind. Her life is filled with the green of her store, the warmth of her one elderly friend, and the quiet determination to help others without putting herself in danger.

Cora is a rorqual pilot, one of the few with the unique ability to navigate the massive, living ships that connect the scattered settlements of their solar system. Her bond with her rorqual, Colibri, is profound—a connection that is both her greatest gift and a threat to her career.

It is that threat—the “mindbleed,” a dangerous side effect of her piloting—that brings her to Signy’s shop, and her appearance puts Signy in the danger she so fears. But it’s soon apparent it’s not just about losing her license—this delicate balance between risk and trust has the potential to change everything for them.

Told in an alternating timeline of their initial coming together and a not‑so‑distant future where they have found domestic bliss, this is a story harrowing and haunting, heartfelt and hopeful. Through a love story centered around survival, we are given a glimpse into the very best of what Becky Chambers does in her writing: explore what it means to be human, and what it means to come together.