Seven Poets and the Assassin’s secret was a first of its kind interactive novel for iOS that followed seven children orphaned following a terrorist attack at the 2012 London Olympics.

I wrote the novel and led the project from concept through creation, teaming with UK-based inkle studios to develop the application.

I wanted to use technology to bring the world of the novel into the world of readers. The app had three main components: Chapters, Newsroom and Challenges. Content was serialized and readers followed the story of the children in real time, day to day, beginning with the attack at the closing ceremonies.

The newsroom existed in the world of the story but included editorials by real-world people dealing with topics relevant to the story–e.g. a structural engineer explaining how the explosives could destroy the stadium.

Challenges came at the end of chapters and encouraged readers to take some specific action relevant to the chapter–e.g. writing a journal entry. They could then take a picture of the activity and save it to a section called ‘My Story’, sharing through social media. Completion of challenges unlocked additional content, including videos, images, and music connected to the story. The app was well received and earned a top 10 app of the week recommendation from The Guardian.