Mrs. Townsend Releases Debut Novel, The Nine

IMSA’s own Mrs. Tracy Townsend debut novel, The Nine, published Tuesday, November 14 from Pyr Books. 

The Nine is the first of a trilogy, Thieves of Fate. Mrs. Townsend did a promotional book signing event at Anderson’s Bookshop on Monday, November 13, before her book’s nationwide release.

When asked to describe her book, Mrs. Townsend calls its “Ocean’s Eleven meets His Dark Materials.” The Nine is about people who get caught up in something much bigger than them; the characters find a book that proves that God is watching mankind in an experiment that is coming to an end. There’s politics, murders, scrappy orphans, and “curmudgeonly, good-souled people”.

Mrs. Townsend says that publishing her debut novel feels like releasing a secret to the world, a process that has been “exciting yet surreal.” She is also very grateful to IMSA for all the support, noting that the book started as a project in 2012 for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Many members of the IMSA community read parts of drafts and helped her improve, and Mrs. Townsend believes that The Nine would not even exist without IMSA.

The IMSA community is excited about the release of the novel and can’t wait for the rest of the series.