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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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WHALEFALL

Daniel Kraus

The Martian meets 127 Hours in this scientifically accurate novel about a young man who's been swallowed by a seventy-foot, sixty-five-ton sperm whale and who now has less than two hoursthe amount of oxygen left in his diving tanksto escape.
Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool's errand - to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. But Jay feels it's the only way for him to make things right between him and his mom and sisters and to lift the enormous weight he has felt since his dad's death.

The dive begins well enough. But the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real danger, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. To his utter horror, Jay gets caught in the squid's tentacles and is pulled into the whale's mouth, where he is then crushed within the whale's esophagus and ejected into the first of the whale's three stomachs. Jay quickly deduces that he has only two hours before his oxygen tank runs out ... two hours to figure out the impossible task of escaping from the belly of a whale.

Told in present-tense chapters within the whale's innards paired with flashbacks of key memories Jay has of his father, this microcosmic, yet cinematic epic is a heart-pounding, second-by-second thriller that is also completely scientifically accurate. More than any anything, Whalefall is a deeply moving story about a young man who has given up on so much of life ... only to find, inside the belly of a whale, a reason to live.

Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling author. He co-authored the widely praised The Living Dead with George A. Romero. With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea Kraus and del Toro created for the Oscar-winning film, as well as Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. Kraus's The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Books of the Year, and his debut comic book, The Autumnal, was one of the most acclaimed comics of 2020. Kraus has won a Scribe Award and two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), and his books have been Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks, Bram Stoker finalists, and more.
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Book

Published 2023-08-08 by Atria/ MTV Books

Book

Published 2023-08-08 by Atria/ MTV Books

Comments

The primordial nightmare at the core of Whalefall is fantastically gripping. A character study developed in the most intense crucible imaginable, Kraus's latest novel is smart, surreal, and powerfully humane.

Brave, bold, epic, propulsive. Whalefall is a deeply moving thriller that holds a planet's worth of hope in the pit of its stomach.

Whalefall is a rare thing: a page-turning, hold-your-breath, man-vs-nature thrill ride, but also a gripping exploration of the unnavigable relationship between parent and child. It's an anguished cry from the depths of that struggle. Bravo!

A moving character study disguised as a riveting, cinematic survival thriller... The pacing is relentless, the awe astounding, and the tension palpably constricting... it is Jay's constant growth throughout the story that makes this novel shine, allowing its beauty to emerge and leave its mark on all who encounter it.

This hard sci-fi thriller is full of cinematic and wild suspense and would be great for fans of Andy Weir, although the tone is far more austere.

Astoundingly great. Whalefall is, quite simply, a beautiful novel - a must-read story of the sea, the nature of awe, and the briny relationships between fathers and sons

One of our oldest stories, one of our greatest fears, and one of our most capable writers. Stranger things than being swallowed by a whale have probably happened, but they've rarely been told so well.

A masterpiece. I haven't felt so alive reading a book in a long, long time.

Whalefall is a mind-blowing, take-your-breath-away adventure, but it's also a tender and moving story of the relationship between a father and son. Daniel Kraus is a writer I greatly admire. He can do anything, and does.

A brutal, unsparing, wildly uplifting book. The sheer buoyancy had me breathless by the end.