joanna-kosinska-483605-unsplash.jpg
 

KATIE KHAN

 

I write books about light and space.

 

holdbackthestars_transparent.png

HOLD BACK
THE STARS

'The new One Day' — Stylist
'The most unique love story I've read in years' — Rowan Coleman, author of The Summer of Impossible Things
'Gravity meets The Versions of Us' — Red

thelightbetweenus_cover.png

THE LIGHT
BETWEEN US

'A bold new talent' — Matt Haig, author of How to Stop Time
'Katie Khan's tale of time travel and friendship takes you on a "will they, won't they" journey with an ending you'll never predict...' — Grazia

Spectrum2.png

THE LIGHT BETWEEN US

 

'Pay close attention: this is a will they, won't they tale with a jaw-dropping twist at its heart' — Express

'Sure to have you weeping' — Grazia

'Gripping, fascinating, funny, romantic, exciting, and hopeful with a great cast of women, The Light Between Us
is a cracking good read' — Rowan Coleman, bestselling author of The Summer of Impossible Things

 'This is a love story, but with a great twist that takes it beyond a classic "will they, won’t they?"' — Stylist

 'A remarkable reading experience  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★' — Heat

'After her intriguing debut, Hold Back The Stars, Katie Khan is back with another sci-fi romance,
which will even appeal to readers who don’t normally do the sci-fi thing' — Red

'A bold new talent' — Matt Haig, bestselling author of How to Stop Time

 
TheLightBetweenUs_KatieKhan.png


Thea and Isaac first met at university. Theirs was an instant connection but it never went further than friendship.

Because, then and now, Thea only has eyes for her work. Not just her course, but also a private project - Thea is determined to prove that time travel is not just the stuff of science fiction. And she has never told anyone the reason why.

When one of their friends goes missing in an experiment, Isaac and Thea must work together to find her - forcing them to re-examine their own friendship.

Is it really as platonic as they used to think?

The Light Between Us is a story of unrequited love and second chances. It begs the dangerous question that we all ask ourselves - what could have been?

 

Katie Khan's writing...
'Will give you all the feels' Heat
'Breaks your heart then kicks it again for good measure in the most beautiful way possible' The Pool
'Will stay with you long after reading' Image

OWN THE U.K. HARDBACK

Available now
Published by Transworld on Aug 9th, 2018
(Penguin Random House)

 
 
 
 
1.jpg

HOLD BACK
THE STARS

'The new One Day' — Stylist
'The most unique love story I've read in years' — Rowan Coleman
'Gravity meets The Versions of Us' — Red
'A bold new talent' — Matt Haig

 
HoldBackTheStars_Paperback_Cover.jpg


Ninety minutes.

A few years from now,
not too far in the future, two people meet.
It is a classic story of boy meets girl. 
Except that it's not.
When we find them, they have an hour and a half left.
Unless they can save themselves, they won't survive.

The clock is ticking.

Bittersweet and life-affirming,
Hold Back the Stars is the love story of the year.

 

'An edge-of-your-seat tale' — Vogue
'An incredibly imaginative debut' 
— Sunday Mirror
'Prepare to shed tears' — Heat
'Original, surprising and romantic' 
— Woman & Home

 

 
Max_HoldBacktheStars

OWN THE U.K. PAPERBACK

Available now
Published by Transworld on Nov 30th, 2018
(Penguin Random House)

 

OWN THE U.S. PAPERBACK

Available now
Published by Gallery on Feb 18th, 2018
(Simon & Schuster)

 
 
Carys_HoldBacktheStars.png
 
 

HARDBACKS

Also available

 
HoldBacktheStars_3D_book.png

U.K. HARDBACK

Published by Transworld (Penguin Random House)
Jan 26th, 2017

HoldBacktheStars_US_cover

U.S. HARDBACK

Published by Gallery (Simon & Schuster)
May 30th, 2017

 
BlackMarble2.jpg

TRANSLATIONS

Hold Back the Stars is being translated into more than twenty languages around the world.


Head to the INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS page for details including foreign publishers,
international cover designs and publication dates.

 
 
 
warren-wong-263024.jpg

PRESS REVIEWS

“The new One Day”
— Stylist
“An edge-of-your-seat tale”
— British Vogue
“A tense survival story with an unexpected ending ★★★★”
— The Sun
“As thought provoking as it is wrenching, prepare to shed tears ★★★★”
— Heat
“Think Gravity meets The Versions of Us”
— Red
“Original, surprising and romantic”
— Woman & Home
“The ticking clock of the novel will have you tearing through it as quickly as you can, all the while getting caught up in the couple’s beautiful love story”
— Hello!
“An incredibly imaginative debut”
— Sunday Mirror
“Breaks your heart, then kicks it a few more times for good measure in the most beautiful way possible”
— The Pool
“Intriguing and moving, it’s a love story that’s out of this world ★★★★”
— Sunday Express
“This is a stirring, unique and beautifully crafted story on the complexities of first love that will stay with you long after reading. This is going to be huge”
— Image
“A space romance with a political edge”
— Irish Times
“A unique take on the usual dystopian fiction . . . a worthy read which will keep you up past bed time ★★★★ ”
— Sci-Fi Now
“Just the ticket if you’re looking to get lost in a breathless love story”
— Grazia

BOOK TRAILER(S)

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

Nice things some brilliant authors have said about HOLD BACK THE STARS...

“Hold Back the Stars is a rare combination of thrilling action, deep emotional depth and intelligent ideas. The most unique love story I’ve read in years.”
— Rowan Coleman, bestselling author of THE MEMORY BOOK
“Dazzling . . . a truly stellar debut, full of wonder and heart. I’m sure it’s going to be a mega hit.”
— Emma Jane Unsworth, author of ANIMALS
“Terrific . . . a beautiful story.”
— Samantha Shannon, bestselling author of THE BONE SEASON
“Playfully serious, imaginatively assured, Hold Back the Stars packs real emotional punch.”
— Laline Paull, bestselling author of the Baileys Prize nominated THE BEES
“Gorgeous, brilliant, heartbreaking . . . A love story to remember.”
— Debbie Howells, bestselling author of THE BONES OF YOU
“What a shiny jewel of a read! Such heart, such brilliance, such exquisite observation. I envy those who are yet to discover this bold and captivating delight.”
— Caroline Smailes, author of THE DROWNING OF ARTHUR BRAXTON
“A high-stakes, high-concept love story from a bold new talent . . . All of the obvious ‘out of this world’ comments apply.”
— Matt Haig, bestselling author of HOW TO STOP TIME
“Bittersweet and beautiful. An intricate and heart-breaking vision of the future.”
— Lauren James, YA author of THE NEXT TOGETHER
“Beautifully, frustratingly, heart-breaking.”
— Maggie Harcourt, YA author of UNCONVENTIONAL
“A beautiful, moving, truly original tale. I loved this book for taking me by surprise.”
— Renee Knight, bestselling author of DISCLAIMER
“A tense, crisp, edge-of-your-seat love story and a completely unexpected ending, I was gripped from the first line to the last. Hold Back The Stars is out of this world. I loved it.”
— Anna McPartlin, author of THE LAST DAYS OF RABBIT HAYES
“This story is gorgeousness in book form.”
— Miranda Dickinson, bestselling author of FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK

And nice things authors have said (so far) about THE LIGHT BETWEEN US...

““Gripping, fascinating, funny, romantic, exciting, and hopeful with a great cast of women, The Light Between Us is a cracking good read.””
— Rowan Coleman, bestselling author of The Summer of Impossible Things
““Full of friendship, romance and hope, The Light Between Us asks what truly defines who we are... and who we love.” ”
— Maggie Harcourt, author of The Last Summer of Us
““An intriguing and wonderfully told story full of brilliant women, friendship, love, art and time travel. Perfect for fans of The Time Traveller’s Wife and Sliding Doors.” ”
— Lydia Ruffles, author of The Taste of Blue Light
jake-hills-36605.jpg

audioBOOK

Read by Games of Thrones actress Gemma Whelan.

Available on Audible and all good audio sites.

Listen to an extract below.

john-silliman-165707.jpg

about katie

 

 

Katie Khan is a writer from London whose first novel, HOLD BACK THE STARS, is published in twenty-four countries internationally and translated into twenty-one languages. HOLD BACK THE STARS is being adapted into a film by producers Dan Cohen and Shawn Levy (Arrival/Stranger Things), directed by Lee Toland Krieger (The Age of Adaline/Riverdale), and exec produced by Good Universe (The Disaster Artist).

HOLD BACK THE STARS was a finalist for the Romantic Novel Awards 2018, and shortlisted for Brave New Words, celebrating originality in genre writing. THE LIGHT BETWEEN US is published in August 2018.

A fan of love stories with epic settings both on the page and on screen, Katie spent 10 years working in online editorial and technology, including 4 years as Head of Digital at Paramount Pictures, before joining Warner Bros. in 2017 to work on a major film production. Named in the 40 Under 40 working in European Cinema at CineEurope 2016, and The Drum's Top 50 most influential people in social media marketing in the UK, Katie was also selected as a Rising Star by The Media Eye.

Katie is represented by literary agent Juliet Mushens, and represented for film rights by Howie Sanders at Anonymous Content.

 
patrick-hendry-217599.jpg

NEWS & Updates

 

INSTAGRAM

Australia & New Zealand, you’re up! Let’s go! #TheLightBetweenUs is published Down Under in sparkly hardback today ✨🇦🇺✨🇳🇿✨ - Thanks to @penguinbooksaus and @penguinbooksnz. If you’re in Aus & NZ and prefer reading paperbacks, the exported large “trade” paperback will be available there in 5 days (Aug 20th). Yep, the different dates make me feel like a time traveller. And the ebook is available right nowwwwwww 📚 Tell your Australian friends! Tag your Australian friends! - 📸 by the wonderful @literaryleisha, her feed is beautiful, go and look 👀💯
Earlier this year I asked @jonnohopkins and I to each name our favourite pieces of popular classical music. The answers were Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. I looked them up, and they are both being played at the @royalalberthall this summer, so here we are! 🎶 Book tickets to things, culture is important. Bring your kids. I find theatre and classical music often prohibitively expensive, but @bbc_proms tickets start at £5. 🎶 (I mean, I’ve said all that, but it’s not been without its mishaps. I accidentally booked us tickets in a box? Behind an elderly couple necking 2 bottles of champagne?? And the lady in front decided to conduct the entire concert from her seat, nearly taking my eye out??? Nice to spend a few hours with music lovers!) 😝 #BBCProms
Let’s celebrate the book being *finally* out in the world! This is a novel about friendship, so... GIVEAWAY: follow me, like this post and tag your best friend in the comments, for a chance to win a signed hardback of #TheLightBetweenUs, a gorgeous @eejewellery necklace (pictured), and the opportunity to name a star! An actual star! (But will you name the star after yourself or your best friend?!) 🇬🇧 UK only. Winner chosen at random on 20/8/18 at 10am. Instagram not affiliated with this competition. Good luck!! 🌙✨
It’s out. It’s here. THE LIGHT BETWEEN US is published today in the UK — available at all good bookshops and online. It’s a novel about time travel, art and history, a group of hella smart female friends, and the grey area between platonic friendship and unrequited love. If you like “what if?” stories, this is for you! - I took this photo in Oxford, where part of the story is set ☺️ Thea and Isaac meet while studying at Christ Church — and, in chapter one, Thea breaks into the University science labs to undertake an illicit experiment with time travel, starting a devastating chain of events... - Authors are nearly always self-effacing (I’m bad for this!), but I love this story, and I love this group; it’s the kind of female friendship I don’t see enough on screen so I wrote it instead. It’s also fairly diverse which is v important to me to reflect the world I live in. And, after writing Hold Back the Stars in which a couple meet for the first time and fall for each other, I wanted to write a pair with a complicated pre-existing history — so I picked a couple of friends, Isaac and Thea. Is their friendship *definitely* as platonic as they think? - Thank you for supporting (or, y’know, simply just tolerating) me. Being able to write novels and being supported by my colleagues, friends, family, publisher and readers means the absolute world. - #TheLightBetweenUs 🌃🌇
2 weeks ago I wasn’t going to have a launch party for my second novel. 1.5 weeks ago I decided I’d regret not marking the moment — after all, publishing a book is a lotta work! Both my publisher and local bookshop jumped into action. Some Pimms, a rainbow cake, a balloon bearing my book title written in glitter, and bowls of crisps later, I was overwhelmed when 50 people turned up to a small bookshop in Kentish Town. In August, when everybody’s meant to be on holiday. - I said it last night and I mean every word: The Light Between Us is a novel about friendship. I am bowled over to have so many friends turn out for me, at short notice, on an evening in August. Thank you. - (Photos all stolen from the internet) - #TheLightBetweenUs 🌙✨
I knew Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures were going to play a small part in the story of The Light Between Us; the way she plays with forms and curves, and the suspended crossing strings, made me immediately think about time and timelines! I felt strongly I wanted to write a novel about time travel which didn’t only include physics or science fiction, but also history, and art history, with real pieces of art the reader can look up and see. I love it when books touch upon real places and people which I can explore after reading! - As luck would have it, as I finished the third draft in January, King & McGaw had this wonderful Hepworth “Spiral” for sale. And it was my birthday. So now the book is finished, and published this week, and I have a Hepworth print (that reminds me of time travel) on my bedroom wall. 💙 - #thelightbetweenus
We’re currently doing up our garden and I’ve been looking for inspiration. I don’t think anything can beat Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech... Would this much bedazzling colour work in a small garden in north London?! 🍃 - side note: I don’t remember wearing a NASA t-shirt, bunches, and a sack skirt(?) to such a fashionable location, but perhaps the heat had gone to my head. 🤷‍♀️

TWITTER

BLOG

Featured
THE LIGHT BETWEEN US: BLOG TOUR

To celebrate the publication of my new novel, The Light Between Us, we're having a blog tour! These are all the places where you can read reviews and bits about the book every day across the next 2 weeks. Exciting! ✨I'll add the links to the blogposts below, so they're all collected in one handy place.

COVER REVEAL! THE LIGHT BETWEEN US
COVER REVEAL! THE LIGHT BETWEEN US

Introducing the cover for my second novel, THE LIGHT BETWEEN US, coming August 9th.

It’s a novel featuring light and time, dusk and dawn, day and night... summed up so beautifully in this cover! (Imagine those gold sparkles on a shelf!) Designed by Beci Kelly at Transworld, who also designed the HOLD BACK THE STARS paperback.

ANNOUNCING THE TITLE OF MY SECOND NOVEL
ANNOUNCING THE TITLE OF MY SECOND NOVEL

It's a story about light and time.

A girl and a boy.

The grey area between platonic friendship and unrequited love...

Oh, and time travel.

The alchemy of reading the right book at the right time
The alchemy of reading the right book at the right time

There is some kind of alchemy involved in finding the right book at the right time. I truly believe there is a specific and perfect time in anyone’s life to read a story—you just have to cross your fingers and hope that you’ll cross paths with it, or have the book pressed into your hands by a loved one, precisely when you need it the most.

I wrote about reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger exactly as I went through my own personal heartbreak - and how cathartic that was.

Hold Back the Stars shortlisted for Romantic Novel Awards 2018
Hold Back the Stars shortlisted for Romantic Novel Awards 2018

A big week for my little book.

First shortlisted for Starburst Magazine's Brave New Words, an award recognising original genre writing, today Hold Back the Stars was announced as a finalist for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award. Eeeee!

Run by the Romantic Novelists' Association, the awards -- called the RoNAs -- are fascinating in that they celebrate the best in romantic fiction each year, honouring works in Contemporary Romantic Fiction, Epic Romantic Fiction, Historical Romance, Romantic Comedy, Paranormal and Speculative Romance, Young Adult Romance and Shorter Romantic Fiction (with the RoNA Rose Award). It's fantastic to see an award recognise so many genres and facets a love story can take.

Hold Back the Stars is a finalist for Brave New Words
Hold Back the Stars is a finalist for Brave New Words

Now, this is a cool thing. An award for genre writing that considers novels, blog posts, short stories, screenplays, poetry, and anthologies. Run by Starburst Magazine, 'Brave New Words' boasts not only an impressive spread of different mediums, but the perfect sci-fi play-on-words title.

I'm so thrilled to be shortlisted - alongside some properly great genre writers, too! Here is the shortlist:

Hold Back the Stars: Music Playlist
Hold Back the Stars: Music Playlist

Every writer has a music playlist for their book. Don't they?

At the very least a brain trailer reel - the music you imagine the scenes of your book set to.
I, personally, use music as a way to transition from my day job back into the world of the novel each evening; I listen to a varied playlist as I drive home from work, letting the music lead my imagination away from Microsoft Outlook and office politics, and back towards the meteor showers, light-up dance floors, and first dates in abandoned observatories of the story I'll be writing when I get back home.