Finding North: September 2025

Red Star Rebels cover reveal! ☄️🚀

Hi there! I’m Amie Kaufman, NYT and internationally bestselling author of The Isles of the Gods, Illuminae, Aurora Rising, Lady’s Knight, These Broken Stars, and many more. This newsletter is the place to learn about my latest releases or events, and to follow along behind the scenes as I find my way through writing, and through life.

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Hi, my friends.

Here’s in Melbourne it’s the start of spring, and I regret to report that I have been celebrating the budding of the flowers and the coming of the sunshine with a decent dose of Influenza B. Apparently it would be even worse if I wasn’t vaccinated, so from the bottom of my heart: get your flu shots! (In related news, for the first time in years, no voiceover for this newsletter. I have no voice.)

One thing has cheered me greatly in my sickbed, though — apart from a Phryne Fisher marathon — and that’s been the arrival of the final cover for the US edition of Red Star Rebels. And I’m going to share it with you right now.

In this letter:

• A cover reveal(!)

• Art is in the details

• An edits update

• An audiobook sneak peek

Let’s get started!

Doctor (Dogtor?) Molly has been glued to my side for the last week in bed.

Cover reveal

Before we do anything else (though there’s lots more below) let’s head straight to the US cover reveal for Red Star Rebels. I’d be scrolling down to see it, so I assume you are too! With gorgeous artwork by Zoë van Dijk and design by Angela Carlino, here we go…

There’s SO much I love about this cover—that slightly raised eyebrow, the smirk, the bold Martian colours. The smudge of dirt on her cheek, the smatterings of freckles and of stars… This is Cleo, who was a stowaway on a ship to Mars, and will do whatever it takes to survive now she’s here. She’s snarky, street-smart, and has no time for your nonsense.

The job of a book’s cover is to make you an accurate promise about what’s inside, so the right readers know to pick the book up. When we first talked about this cover, my ideas revolved around these bold reds, yellows and oranges. “I want the cover to wink at the reader, hint at the banter inside. I want it to say if you loved Illuminae or Aurora Rising…” And did my team ever deliver.

This cover won’t be revealed online for 24 hours, so please keep it a secret until then! I always share things first with my newsletter subscribers.

RED STAR REBELS

It’s 2067, and the Graves family has transformed Mars from a lifeless rock into a chaotic patchwork of settlements. You can buy a one-way ticket to a new life—if you’re rich.

Enter Hunter Graves, the handsome, ambitious grandson of the man who settled Mars. With spectacularly bad timing. Hunter arrives at the United Nations base just as an emergency evacuation sends everyone fleeing for safety. Except he’s left behind. Uh oh.

Also stranded: Cleo, a sharp-tongued stowaway with no intention of dying today, and even less patience for overconfident trust fund boys. But the enemy of your enemy might just help you survive… so here we are.

It turns out the evacuation was just a cover for the mercenaries who came next, and their plan to blow up the base—and every trace of their crime—in eight hours.

Now, Hunter and Cleo have one shot to stop the explosion, escape alive, and deal with the inconvenient fact that they're falling for each other.

The clock is ticking.

Friends, may I ask a favour?

The big moments in a book’s pre-publication life — when the deal is announced, when the cover is revealed — are all so important in building excitement. In these days of nightmarish algorithms, it can be so hard to cut through to the people who are actually waiting for your work. If I had a way to let every person who’s said “write another space book!” know about Rebels, I’d be in amazing shape, but alas, the signal-to-noise ratio is not great.

I would be much obliged if you’d do any of the following:

1. Keep an eye on my instagram account — I’ll reveal the cover there on Thursday evening (USA time) or Friday morning (Aussie time.) I would be so grateful if you’d help boost the announcement. Like the post, comment, save, share to your stories, etc.

2. If you know you’re going to read this book, an early preorder is incredibly valuable. You can preorder in the US right now (and get 25% - 35% off at B&N.) If you’re in Australia, the UK, France or Germany, stand by for exciting news coming soon — and other countries to follow!

3. Add it on Goodreads—those early numbers are important! It costs nothing to do, but really signals reader excitement to publishers.

What I’ve Been Up To

Recently my husband and I took a day off, hit the French Impressionism exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria, and soaked up many of the beautiful pieces on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

Impressionism is perhaps my favourite movement — I love the way the light is portrayed, I love the French countryside so often depicted, and I love the sense of fresh air and outdoors in so many of the works. In some ways, it’s hard to untangle my love for the paintings themselves from the happiness I’ve found exploring the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The paintings make me happy, and they also recall happiness.

My favourite this time was Fisherman’s cottage on the cliffs at Varengeville by Claude Monet.

Paintings like this are the most exquisite examples of how small details come together to create something larger. Although it looks like such a detailed picture, the truth is that if you lean in close, so many of the small daubs of paint are just that. Not in the shape of a flower, or a leaf, or a brick. Just a dab of colour.

But every single one of them contributes to the overall picture — they all add up, even if you don’t actually notice them individually. Their presence matters, despite the fact that any single daub doesn’t really show much of anything.

I’m thinking about this, of course, because I’m editing right now. And it doesn’t always seem like smoothing out a particular sentence, weaving in a tiny moment of foreshadowing, or sharpening a moment of banter is what makes the difference. Each of these moments takes work, but it’s just a tiny daub of paint. Add them up, though, and you find that the sum is always greater than its parts.

What I’m Writing

Meg and I are deep into edits on Lady’s Knight 2 (speaking of which, another cover reveal is coming your way soon!) and then I’ll be turning my attention to my pass pages for Red Star Rebels.

Pass pages are the first time the author sees the book typeset, looking like an actual book, instead of a word document. It’s always a special moment, seeing the story come to life.

And actually, since you’ve read this far, here’s a tiny peek at the first of my Red Star Rebels pages. Don’t tell.

What I’ve Loved Lately

Usually I recommend a book, a TV show or a movie here that I love — but if you’ll indulge me, this month I want to recommend something closer to home.

The audiobook of Lady’s Knight is outstanding. Truly something special. The narrators absolutely nail it — we begged for Barbara Rosenblat to read the Narrator’s part (and she’s even better than we imagined) and Helen Keeley does such a great job reading Gwen and Isobelle that now we hear her in our head as we work on the sequel. The ultimate compliment.

I feel like the audiobook is something I can admire, because I had nothing to do with the making of it, and get to enjoy these actors’ skills like the rest of you.

I could tell you about this forever, but this is one of those situations where hearing is understanding. So we convinced our audio team to give us a full hour sample, which means you’ll really be able to sink in and enjoy the story. You can listen to it in the feed for the Pub Dates podcast, and I hope you will. If you could use a laugh or a lift, this one’s for you.

News and Events

Melbourne: On 18th September, I’ll be at Readings Kids to host Bianca Breen in conversation about her new YA spec fic, Made of Steam and Stardust. You can book here.

Brisbane: I’m so delighted to announce I’ll be at Brisbane Writers Festival this year. Last year I had to pull out of programming the night before due to a loss in the family, and the team has been so kind in inviting me back to make some better memories, and see you all.

I’ll be appearing on Friday Oct 10th at 7:30pm with Lynette Noni and Cale Dietrich, chaired by Alex Adsett and talking about romance of all types. Tickets will sell quickly to this one, and you can grab yours here.

I’ll also be in the schools program on Thursday Oct 9th and Friday Oct 10th at 1pm, talking about everyday magic. You can grab your tickets here.

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That’s it for this month! Next time I write to you, I’ll be freshly returned from a trip to Japan, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. If that sounds fun, you might like to read this newsletter from 2023, when I told you all about my last trip.

If you use gmail, you’ll find it helpful to drag this email from its place in the ‘promotions’ tab at the top, across to the ‘primary’ tab, so it doesn’t get lost among the advertisements.