Published in October this year by Sparsile Press

We are all the result of an unbroken line of life forms splitting or reproducing for almost four billion years.
 
A novel about human evolution, 100,000 Birthdays explores how we’ve become who we are.  The book begins with the first birthday of the narrator, then rewinds to the first birthday of her (many times great) grandfather – a microbe called Kevin bobbing in a not-very-salty sea. Thereafter, the chapters visit subsequent ancestors: Polly the prokaryote who discovers sex, William the melancholy worm, Margaret the brazen fish who crawls out of the sea, Freddie the hungry hominid who decides to head north-west one day. The second half of the book begins with the advent of homo sapiens and follows four 17th – 18th century ancestors in Scotland, Paris, Canada, and the American colonies. Their stories are told in the context of their evolution from Kevin the microbe and their connection to the narrator. 
 
‘A stupendously funny and unsentimental journey into our origins.’
– Carolyn Jones – investigative reporter EdSource