I stumbled across this title on Penguin UK’s website, while looking for information on another book. It caught my eye first because of the interesting cover, but then I read the synopsis and my interest was even more piqued:

Deadwood, USA. A girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit, she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see something far stranger…

“We always look forward. We never look back.”

That girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklyn, a brilliant scientist and the leading world expert on what she discovered. An enormous, ornate hand made of an exceptionally rare metal, which predates all human civilisation on the continent. 

“But this thing… it’s different. It challenges us. It rewrites history.”

An object whose origins and purpose are perhaps the greatest mystery humanity has ever faced. Solving the secret of where it came from — and how many more parts may be out there — could change life as we know it.

“It dares us to question what we know about ourselves.”

But what if we were meant to find it? And what happens when this vast, global puzzle is complete…?

“About everything.”

My interested grew again when I learned that Neuvel is Canadian — as a recent immigrant, I’m rather keen on discovering more authors from Canada.

Sylvain Neuvel‘s Sleeping Giants, the first in the Themis Files series, is due to be published by Michael Joseph in the UK, on April 7th, 2016; it is due to be published by Del Rey in the US (cover below), on April 26th, 2016.