The Earth Gambit

Kezia “Kez” Marlowe is seventeen. She hustles speed chess in Piccadilly Gardens, works in a chip shop, and holds her family together. Then two alien fleets appear behind the Moon.

Regent Ossian Vahl makes the planet an offer: one human, the Witness, has a hundred days to decide whether Earth joins his empire or is cut off forever, and silence counts as yes.

The lot falls on Kez. Courted by two alien envoys, hunted by assassins and betrayed from within, she discovers what happened to the forty-seven worlds that said yes before.

To save Earth, she will have to play the most dangerous game of her life against an opponent who has been playing for nine thousand years.