Quill and Still cover art

Quill and Still

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Quill and Still

By: Aaron Sofaer
Narrated by: Avalon Penrose
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

About this listen

Sophie Nadash once yearned to understand life and chemistry. Now a disillusioned scientist approaching middle age, she yearns to set aside pipettes and polymerase forever.

A chance encounter with the Goddess Artemis sets her on the path to becoming the Alchemist for the rural Shemmai village of Kibosh, where the rat race gives way to peace and the quiet life. Freed from the hustle of Earth, she can relax, make friends, and rediscover her love for chemistry through its mystical precursor... and come to grips with the Jewish faith she left behind as a child.

Quill and Still weaves together chemistry, mythology, magic, and an off-the-path Judaism to form a slice-of-queer-life, which reviewers described as “like opening up a pulp fiction novel and getting Milton's Paradise Lost.” It's perfect for lovers of cozy, slice-of-life fiction in the vein of Becky Chambers’s “Records of a Spaceborn Few” or Jo Walton’s “Lifelode.”

©2023 Aaron Sofaer (P)2025 Riverfolk Books
Fantasy Jewish World Literature Village

Critic reviews

"Aaron crafts an interesting, vibrant world to explore. A slow life fantasy about civics, science, and a city above a dungeon." - Casualfarmer, author of Beware of Chicken

"This is the story I never knew I’d always wanted to read, in a world I never knew I’d always wanted to inhabit. Among high-concept fantasy conceits, ‘what if a society was built to maximize decency’ sounds almost banal to describe, until you see it actually executed well and realize just how subversive that idea is. You deserve to read Quill & Still." -D. D. Webb, author of The Gods are Bastards

No reviews yet