Albion Awakes tells the story of 13-year-old Leigh Woodward, a nonbinary teen who lives with their grandfather in a caravan by the North York Moors. When an archaeological dig at nearby Star Carr uncovers a Stone Age antler headdress, Leigh feels strangely drawn to it… and it feels drawn to them.
With the help of local nature gods and prehistoric British genderqueer shamans, Leigh must try to save their valley from their mother’s new lithium mine… and discover along the way that being trans might not only be natural and ancient, but powerful.
Albion Awakes is a queer-ecological and archaeological coming-of-age novel for teens by S.K. Marley. Written in a climate crisis of anti-trans rhetoric and mental health for young trans people in the UK, it seeks to dispel the contemporary myths of genderqueerness being something new and ‘unnatural’.
Exploring themes of self-acceptance, courage and community, it asks what we can do inside to help us (re)connect with what’s outside: our communities and the land that sustains us.
