Biography

Newton combines strange and vivid creations with very real and pressing concerns with estimable commitment and passion.

— China Miéville on City of Ruin

I was born in 1981 to an Indian mother and an English father. That’s why I’ve got a strange middle name that no one seems to be able to pronounce. To keep things short, I took a degree in Environmental Science, after which I worked in a couple of bookshops, managing the genre sections and running literary events.

A life of books appealed, so I moved into an editorial position at the Black Flame imprint, which published media tie-in fiction for the franchises New Line Cinema and 2000 AD. Later, I worked as a Science Fiction and Fantasy editor for Solaris, publishing novels into the British and American mass markets, before the publisher was sold on.

My own first mass market novels, the Legends of the Red Sun series, were published by Pan Macmillan (Tor UK), and rights have been sold to the US, Germany and Italy. I’m currently writing a new fantasy series, which focusses on a new character called Lucan Drakenfeld. The first title is, unsurprisingly, Drakenfeld. It’s pseudo-classical crime fiction set in a secondary world, and will be released in October 2013.

In addition to novels and the occasional short story – one of which I read out on BBC Radio 4 - I’ve written the occasional piece for the Huffington Post. For a year I wrote book reviews for The Ecologist magazine, until it merged with Resurgence. I also run a whisky website.

If you want to drop me a line, please feel free to do so – it’s always nice to hear from people.