A Million Tiny Missiles All at Once is an extraordinary debut written from the heart - a family drama, a coming-of-age story, and a powerful insight into what it can be like to grow up with neurodiversity. Set during a particularly brutal winter in the wilds of Canada, the relentless weather mirrors the harshness of life in a small town where everyone knows you, or thinks they do. Elias is fourteen: innocent, sensitive, and more naïve than most boys his age. He adores his older brother, Bo, but Bo is beginning to drift away from him. After getting into trouble at school and then losing his job at the local wood mill, it’s implied that Bo has become entangled in the town’s drug scene and now owes money to some dangerous people. His parents are arguing, his dad has moved to the city for a promotion, and now Bo is in some kind of rehab treatment centre - all Elias knows is that his family is failing apart. He becomes convinced that the way to fix everything is to win the school talent competition - and with it the prize of a family dinner at a local pizza restaurant. But despite hard knocks and disappointment, with love and support from the people around him, Elias begins to realise that family bonds can endure even the toughest tests. This is a novel about finding yourself, building confidence, and learning who you can trust - all told with warmth and threaded with sharp, observational humour.

Lucas Maxwell is our Debut Author of the Month, and he shared an insight into his exceptional novel, A Million Tiny Missiles All at Once.

Q. This story feels like it’s been years in the making. Can you tell us about its journey, from the first draft to the published novel?

A. I wrote the first draft when I was around nineteen years old. I desperately wanted to be a writer, and I was sending short stories off to every Canadian publisher I could think of. All of these stories would eventually become part of the novel, none of them were ever published. I joined a creative writing group that met at night and the teacher held up one of my stories and announced to the group that she knew it would be published one day. I never forgot that and those words stuck with me for many years. 

Q. How much of Elias is inspired by you?

A. He's very close to who I am, and who I was as a teenager. He's probably got more guts than I did, actually, but I wanted readers to see the things I've experienced because I felt like I had some unique experiences growing up and I thought people might find them compelling. 

Q. In a recent article, you mentioned that you “don’t think I could write a novel that didn’t reflect my own experiences, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable creating a neurodivergent character if I wasn’t neurodivergent.” Do you think writers can only write from their own lived experience? Is neurodiversity one of those areas where you feel you need to have lived it to write it authentically?

A. My personal view is that someone who isn't neurodiverse should not be writing from a neurodiverse viewpoint because I feel that it's not possible for them to know what it's like. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable writing from the perspective of someone who was from another race, for example. I wanted my story to feel as authentic as possible and to do that I needed to write from my own experiences.

Q. The title - A Million Tiny Missiles All At Once - is very striking. How did you come up with it?

A. All of the credit goes entirely to Chicken House for the title, I did not come up with it, although I love it! The title comes from a line in the book and for me, depicts both the brutal winter and the thoughts that are racing through Elias' mind. My original title was You Have Selected Power Drive and although I loved it, I love the new one a lot more!

Q. In the story Elias enters the talent competition with a stand-up comedy routine which adds a lot of funny moments, and some poignant ones, to the story. How did you source the jokes? Did you make up any of the jokes yourself? And do you have a favourite one? (Mine was the frisbee, made me laugh a lot!). 

A. These are jokes that were told to me as a young kid, primarily by my dad who has a great sense of humour. I altered a few myself but a lot of these jokes were ones I heard growing up and morphed and changed with the times. I did do standup comedy in Canada for a little while but did not steer towards jokes like Elias tells, I told stories that I hoped were funny. 

Q. As a reader, I was fascinated by “the winter that wouldn’t leave” - the snow and freezing conditions almost feel like another character, causing chaos in the story. What made you decide to set the novel during such a harsh, relentless winter?

A. This will make me sound like I'm one hundred years old but as kids we'd race downstairs in the winter to listen to the radio and pray we'd hear that school had been cancelled because of the snow. I can remember one winter in particular we had an entire week off school because of blizzards. It was the best thing that could ever happen to you as a kid, you'd spend all day outside making forts, sliding down hills on toboggans and having massive snowball fights. On the same token, winters could be deadly if you were driving or if you were exposed to the wind and cold for too long where the temperatures could drop to -20 or even colder. In Nova Scotia, the weather rules all, and I wanted to really put it front and centre in this story because it had such a huge impact on my life. 

Q. Why did you choose to tell this story as a YA novel rather than as adult fiction?

A. An honest answer to this question is that I did not write it with any age group in mind. I just wanted to tell this story. I think it's a story that adults and young teens will enjoy because it's honest and it will hopefully strike a chord with people. I understand why the publishing industry needs to say "this is for this age group" but as someone who just wants to tell interesting and impactful stories, I don't think like that, I hope that everyone will enjoy it.

Q. The Nova Scotia depicted in the book seems like a harsh, bleak place - both in weather and atmosphere. Do you ever return? And what brought you to the UK?  

A. We go back every other Summer, it's a beautiful place, and I really miss many aspects of it. Most of the people from my hometown are very hardworking, decent people. However, for me personally, I felt like I wanted to travel and experience other things. I don't judge anyone who stayed there after high school but for me, things weren't great. I think yes, in the winter, it can be a bleak place, although it can also be beautiful in the winter too. I just felt very anxious to go to new places, I moved to Prague for a while and taught English as second language. I met an amazing person in Prague who was from the UK, moved there with her and many years later we were married. We lived in Nova Scotia for ten years, had two children and then moved back to the UK because I wanted my children to have a different experience from me. 

Q. When did you fall in love with reading? 

A. I think I've always loved reading, I was a kid who was really into as many different books as I could get my hands on. It was when my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Kelly, read us The Hobbit that things really kicked into gear for me regarding fantasy and from there I got into things like Vonnegut and Stephen King when I was older. I also read a ton of comics, mainly The Punisher because I felt like it was something I was too young to be reading (and probably was). I would read the old Dungeons and Dragons manuals and adventures and just get entirely lost in them, I think that's why I love them so much, it's really comforting for me to be engaged in reading. 

Q. As a School Librarian, how do you promote reading to the students in your secondary school? And why is it essential that we keep libraries open?

A. I am very fortunate to lead dedicated library lessons for years 7, 8 and 9. So on a daily basis I get to speak to over one hundred students and promote great books and run fun literary-based programmes. I use every one of these opportunities to promote reading. It's essential to keep libraries open because the research proves that reading for pleasure builds empathy, promotes wellbeing, helps with improving sleep patterns and helps people become more informed and understanding citizens. Not to mention that libraries are also some of the last free public spaces where you can learn, meet new people and have fun. 

Q. How can we address the decline in reading among the 11+ age group, particularly with boys?

A. In my opinion there are several things that need to be done in order to address the decline in reading. We need to pay more attention to graphic novels and manga, because these are often looked down upon by gatekeepers and other adults. I feel they are a major piece to the puzzle and need to be taken more seriously when it comes to publishers and booksellers. School leadership teams need to understand the value of a school librarian, and not just a room with books in it. It's really great that the government has pledged to increase the number of school libraries, but this did not mention school librarians. My question is, who is going to manage these spaces? Teachers? This simply isn't possible. I've worked in a secondary school for almost thirteen years and I can easily say that teachers are being ground down to a fine dust by the workload, there is no way you can ask them to run a library on top of this. The answer is to invest in a dedicated school librarian and to give them a budget to work with. I really don't believe that the money isn't there, I believe that leadership doesn't understand the value of a school librarian and therefore they don't put the money where it matters. Hiring a school librarian will get young people reading. A school librarian will invest in texts that reflect the diverse nature of their student body, create programming that is fun and engaging and introduces them to new books.  They will also bring in authors, which for me, is one of the best ways to get boys reading - having a great author event can make a huge difference. 

Q. 2026 is the National Year of Reading. Are you involved in any plans or initiatives for the year, and if the campaign could achieve just one thing, what would you hope that would be?

A. I love that 2026 was named the National Year of Reading. I think for many school librarians, every year is the National Year of Reading! My plan for the initiative is to hopefully use it to make the benefits of reading for pleasure more widely known. If the campaign could achieve one thing, I'd like to see the government recognise the value of school librarians, I'd like to see school leadership teams in more schools hire librarians, provide them space to work, give them a budget and leave them alone to do great things. That's more than one thing, but that's every school librarian's dream, I think.  

Q. How did it feel to hold your finished novel in your hand and how did you celebrate?

A. It was a surreal moment, I felt like I was in a fever dream. It's still bizarre to me, this idea I had when I was essentially a teenager, something I've tried so hard to get published for so long. I am very grateful to everyone at Chicken House and to my agent Lydia Silver and to my amazing family for this because it wouldn't have happened without them. My family and I all went out to dinner and for me, there was no better way to celebrate. 

Lucas Maxwell is a school librarian, was previously crowned School Librarian of the Year, and was awarded a British Empire Medal for his contribution to libraries and education in 2024. He hosts a children’s book podcast, and we are proud that he is also part of the LR4Kids editorial team. You can read some of his recent reviews here - and his debut novel A Million Tiny Missiles All at Once is available for pre-order now.

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