There are two main narrative perspectives in Mutate: Cara, an X, and Brown, a Y. Cara is a powerful figure in the new city of Galex, whereas Brown is treated as a slave.

Extract 1 is from the beginning of the novel, from Cara’s perspective.

Extract 1

One of my earliest memories is the first time I witnessed a Y transformation.

I must have been about three years old. We were moving between city hostels at the time, trying to find safe havens. There weren’t many back then. Ys were still running free without controls, so the risk of them becoming infected and mutating was high. The army was struggling to keep control: so many soldiers had died, they hardly had any manpower left, and the ones they did have were at risk of changing. It’s a shame that, at the time, the army was overwhelmingly made up of Ys.

Why I was out alone in the street at that age is anyone’s guess. Myla always says I must have been on the hunt for food, as I never stopped eating. We’d joke about poor parenting skills leading to kids being made breakfast by monsters.

At the time I didn’t laugh, though. I can still remember how hard my heart pounded, how afraid I was, when this human-lizard hybrid looked at me like I was human-shaped snack. I can still remember my Mum’s angry, hysterical shriek as she yelled at me. I can still remember Myla peeking out from behind her legs, barely six years old herself, shaking in fear as she witnessed her mother killing a Saurian to save her little sister.

Unfortunately, that’s no longer the worst monster I’ve seen.

Extract 2 is from Brown’s perspective, giving an insight into what life is like for a Y in the city of Galex.

Extract 2

The morning alarm felt brutal. Bells rang loudly in the dorm every morning at six, giving us time to get up and report for duty. It must have felt the same for those teenage boys who were in the school so many years ago. Just like us, I’m sure they would have been reluctant to leave the warmth of their beds for a day’s work. Though, to be honest, I’d do anything to swap my day for one filled with advanced algebra and physics.

After what felt like only five minutes’ sleep, I dragged my body up and placed my feet squarely on the cold floor.

“You look like a corpse, Bro,” joked Blue.

“I feel like one too,” I answered, stretching my arms to hear them crack. I padded to the washroom to get cleaned up. Red and Orange were in there already, brushing their teeth.

“Hey,” they greeted.

“You Browns out today?” asked Red. He meant the runners: our colour was Brown, then we each had a number to identify us. I was Brown 21. Reds were domestic, Blues hunters, Oranges cooks and Greens maintenance. We’d been allocated our colours and numbers when things had changed after the deaths of the Founders. My real name felt like a ghost: a faded reminder of the past. To my friends, I was Brown, the number only added if needed. In private, they called me Gonzales, after some cartoon mouse we had seen as kids, who could run really fast. The Boss didn’t like the whole nickname thing though, so we kept it on the down-low. Still, it felt like a small way we could assert some form of personal identity, a way of refusing to become just another faceless Y. We called Myla the Boss as it reminded us just how dangerous she was: the title never let us forget that she was in charge.

Despite the hierarchy of the city, Brown and Cara have fallen in love. Their relationship must be kept a secret, as if discovered, it would endanger both their lives.

Extract 3

It was when I was telling her about my mother that Cara took things a step further.

“I’ll never forget her final moments,” I shared, having just told her about the cancer and how tiny mum had looked in her hospital-style bed at the end. “I held onto her hand, dry as paper. I could feel every bone and sinew and vein. Yet, she was still warm and comforting, life still pulsed through her. It hit me then, that she’d be gone before the day was over and I’d never get to see or touch her again.” Cara placed her hand over mine. The touch of her skin brought the memory back even more vividly, and tears started to trickle down my cheeks. “I’ve never felt as scared as I did in that moment. Not even when faced with a nest of Saurians.” I smiled weakly. “The world felt empty, like I was going to have to navigate it alone. I still miss her every day.”

“I know how you feel,” said Cara. “Losing my mum was one of the worst things to ever happen to me. Seeing her broken body … something broke in me, too.” Now she was the one to wipe away a tear. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be fully ‘fixed’ again.” She smiled wanly.

I squeezed her hand back. “I don’t think you’re broken,” I said. “If anything, you’re stronger than you were, because you’ve had to be. I suppose it’s more like a scar you carry with you. It will always be a part of you: you’ll never forget what happened, but you’ll keep growing in spite of it.”

Cara stared at me.

“How did you get to be so wise?” she asked admiringly.

“Just raw talent, I think.” I grinned. She moved closer. Our lips touched, and a thousand tiny explosions went off inside of me. This is what love feels like, I thought to myself.

What inspired you to write Mutate?

The idea for Mutate came before Covid, but this was definitely a book born of lockdown. In March 2020, I was on maternity leave with a three-month-old baby. I used the time at home to finally get my story down on paper. I saw it as a trilogy straight away: dystopian worlds open so many possibilities for development and a longer narrative arc. Plus, the idea of a virus that causes only men to mutate offered multiple imaginative possibilities. How would society be changed? What would happen if it spread to women? Could the mutations ever be controlled? These are questions that helped me develop the characters and storyline across The Chromosome Trilogy.

Inspiration behind The Chromosome Trilogy

I’ve always been fascinated by the way societies function — and how fragile that balance can be when something unexpected shifts it. The idea for the trilogy came from a single, unsettling thought: what if a virus only affected men? I wanted to explore not just how that might change the world, but what it would reveal about power, identity, and the ways we connect to one another in times of crisis.

I wrote Mutate, book one of The Chromosome Trilogy, during the Covid lockdown, so the atmosphere of uncertainty and helplessness we all felt at that time definitely crept into the story. I wanted to capture that sense of powerlessness, and the dystopian setting gave me space to imagine a world where people are divided not by choice, but by their genetics.

At its heart, though, the trilogy is a love story. That thread was really important for me to carry through into Evolve, the second book. I also wanted to do something a bit different this time, which is why I moved the story to a new city. It puts the characters out of their comfort zone and opens up space for new faces — some of whom definitely aren’t what they seem. I loved writing Evolve because, with the main characters already established, I could focus more on their growth and relationships as the world around them becomes increasingly dangerous.

Extract 1:

The book’s Prologue:

The Wilders were everywhere. 

Surrounded, their best hope was a quick and brutal counter-attack. With a bit of luck, they could take out a few of them and scare the rest off.

 A plump baby might make a tasty morsel, but it wasn’t worth losing your life over.

“This is horribly familiar,” Brown said, slowly reaching around to his rucksack.

“At least this time we’re prepared,” Cara answered, hand already on her weapon.

The biggest of the Wilders gestured to the others, snarling at the prey in its path. Fingers twitching, it signalled silent orders, tugging the bone in its ear and swiping a hand across its face. 

Its meaning was clear: kill them quickly.

With hair a ragged haze of fuzz wafting in the breeze, Brown couldn’t tell if this was an X or a Y. Prominent eyes bulged, a hungry look driving the slow licking of its lips. It approached warily, flanked by the small army now encircling them, like coiled vipers poised to strike.

It doesn’t matter, Brown thought. We’ve overcome so much worse. These creatures will not be the ones to take us out – the real danger is far more frightening, far more deadly than a pack of feral kids.

“Yep. We’ll finish them off without too much effort, I reckon,” he said.

Both waited patiently for the charge, ready to fight off any threat to their sleeping child.

It was one small sound that changed everything.

Click.

The unmistakeable sound of a gun’s safety mechanism being switched off.

It took only seconds, no more than a few, before the Wilders had melted into the air, disappearing as stealthily as they had surrounded them.

“Hello, Sis.”

Brown’s heart dropped; he hit the ground, knees giving out.

That voice. The one he heard in his nightmares, especially since the Amex attack.

She’d found them.

Extract 2

Taken from Chapter 5, when the group first arrive at the new city of Amex:

That first moment when we glimpsed the city, I felt like a pilgrim who’d finally made it to the Vatican. Except instead of hearing the Pope belt out a powerful religious message of hope and salvation, I heard … music.

“Is that … classical?” 6 asked, head cocked.

“I think it’s Mozart,” Becka replied. We stared at her. “What? You think I only know how to fight lizards?”

The swell of violins, the crescendo of an orchestra, felt magical; my heart lifted. My lungs filled with air.

“Jeez, I’ve not heard music in forever,” Striker mumbled, as we all stood and listened. Even Xyla, fractious with hunger, quietened and froze open-mouthed.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

“Pretty weird, though,” said Striker. “I mean, why pipe it out here? Nobody’s about to listen, ‘cept maybe a few Wilders, or Saurians, or whatever new monsters have come along since the Epidemic.”

“It is pretty incongruous, what with the high walls and lack of any visible people,” added Becka, gesturing towards the imposing outskirts of Amex.

“I think it’s soothing,” suggested Cara. “Maybe they think it calms even the wildest of beasts.”

Striker shrugged. “Whatever, man. I just hope they’ve got some decent food in there. What I wouldn’t give for a freeze-dried, tinned, preserved piece of crap with no nutritional value right now.”

***

The whole set-up was seriously different to what we’d been used to. From the first moments of arrival, it was obvious how much further advanced this place was. The outer wall reminded me of an old-fashioned castle, complete with drawbridge. However, this one was plated with a sheen of metal and barbed wire, and had been updated with cameras and an intercom system: no chance anyone was sneaking over the top unnoticed.

We gave our names, details of our party and waited while they had a good look. A juddering mechanism started descending, and the door to the city was opened. A screeching whine accompanied its journey down.

“Wow,” 6 breathed, as we took in the internal view of the city, the classical music still floating on the air, despite being muted inside.

Whether Amex had escaped the worst destruction of the bombings, or whether they had some superhero team of architects and builders, was unclear. What was clear, however, was that compared to Galex, this place was seriously space age.

Metal and glass seemed to be the favoured building materials, giving the whole place a lightness as sunlight reflected across multiple surfaces. Some of the structures were a few levels high: nothing like the skyscrapers littering urban areas before the Epidemic, but definitely not too distant a relative. The streets themselves were wide and spacious; boulevards swept clean and pale in the sun added to the bright façade. Even from a distance, the presence of security systems, with blinking lights and steel doors, was evident for all to see.

“This is more futuristic than I was expecting,” I said to Cara.

“Dude, it’s like we’ve gone forward 200 years!” exclaimed Striker, eyes full of wonder.

“Yeah, they have a reputation for being really forward-thinking,” piped up Pan.

“I get that. I just wasn’t expecting it to extend to the look of the place. I thought they were just about equality.” Looking around, it felt like this would take some getting used to.

“But scientifically? They’re streets ahead,” Pan continued. “Vaccines, security, you name it. I spoke to some guys once, who said they’re working on something big. Something to get rid of the Lizard men for good.”

Cara and I exchanged glances. This would help explain the lack of Saurians we’d encountered. Could it really be the case that they’d worked out how to eliminate them?

“A lot of it’s down to some genius scientist they got running the place, apparently. Took it over and built the place up.”

“Seriously? How d’you know all this?” I asked.

Pan shrugged; his eye twitching as it did when anyone asked him a question. “You hear stuff. I spent a lot of time in trees, just listenin’. It’s easy to eavesdrop on conversations when no one knows you’re there.”

“You hear anything else?” Striker asked, his stare making Pan twitch even faster.

“Not much. I did see some people who seemed to be leaving Amex though. Sounded scared. Dunno what of.”

“You think something here scared them?” Cara asked, her pace slowing as she gripped Xyla tight in her sling.

“I dunno. Mebbe. Could be they was wrong ‘uns themselves. They looked pretty shifty. And they was a couple of Xs who definitely looked like they could handle themselves, so who knows? Mebbe they just had a disagreement with the people in charge ‘ere.”

“Jeez, did you not think to mention this before?” Becka asked, hands on hips.

“What was the point? I figured everywhere’s dangerous now. I’ve ‘eard far more good stuff about this city than bad. And you can’t judge a place on the word of a few abandoners. I dunno, mebbe they wasn’t keen on all this security; used to their own privacy, p’haps?” Pan gestured to the cameras, all now swivelled in our direction.

Cara looked unsure. My heart jumped – I couldn’t let her abandon the place now, not when we’d come so far!

“Let’s give it a week,” I said. “Check things out, see what’s what. If we don’t like it, we move on. Or head back to Galex.”

Looking thoughtful, Cara eventually nodded. “Okay. I’ll give it a chance. But one hint that we’re not safe, and we go. I’m worried about Galex anyway, what with the lack of communication from Ilana.”

“Agreed. And you’re right, at least some of us should head back soon to check on things. Either we’ll all leave and cut our losses or send a search party back. Either way, we need to give this place a fair shot. We’ve sacrificed a lot to get here.”

“Um, guys?” I turned to look at 6, noting his wary expression. “I think we’ve left it too late to back out now anyway.”

We all followed the direction of his finger, pointing up the road to an impressive glass fronted building, whose doors were gliding open to reveal a group of about six figures.

“Looks like our welcome committee’s arrived.”