GREAT BRITISH BAKE-OFF's Kim-Joy reveals cover for new graphic novel, QUIET

Kim-Joy first won over fans with her intricate, otherworldly bakes and gentle, cat-loving presence on the ninth season of the Great British Bake-Off, finishing as a finalist and quickly becoming one of the show’s most beloved alumni. But in the years since leaving the tent, she’s built a second career that runs parallel to baking rather than away from it—one rooted in mental health advocacy and storytelling. Recently, PEOPLE exclusively revealed the cover for Kim-Joy's latest graphic novel, Quiet, out via ComiXology Originals.

Where her Bake-Off run introduced audiences to her whimsical, meticulous style—showstoppers shaped like planets, insects, and folklore creatures—Kim-Joy’s post-show output has consistently circled back to something more personal: what it feels like to carry an inner world that doesn’t always make it to the surface. While her previous work has explored the author's social anxiety and mental health struggles, Quiet is set to be her most direct exploration of that idea yet.

Quiet follows Mary, a girl left mortified when she’s assigned a SereniBot, who is a mental health support robot, after years of selective mutism kept her from speaking a word in school. What begins as an unwelcome intervention turns into something stranger and more empowering: through a spiral of pranks and misadventures, Mary realizes the robot can help her fight back against the people who’ve spent years underestimating her. But as the story escalates, the line between self-advocacy and becoming the very thing she’s fighting starts to blur.

“So much of Mary comes from my own experience of feeling like I have a whole world going on inside my head that doesn’t always make it out, and I think a lot of people know that feeling,” Kim-Joy told PEOPLE. “I wanted to write something for us. And maybe it also makes you want your own robot!”

That instinct to write “for us”—for people who’ve felt voiceless or misread—traces back to Kim-Joy’s life before television. Long before she was piping royal icing under studio lights, she worked in mental health support across both community and inpatient settings in the UK. That background never really left her post-Bake-Off work; if anything, it’s become the throughline. She currently partners with Wren Bakery, a UK charity that combines baking with mental health support, work she describes as being “at the heart of everything I do.”

Quiet reunites Kim-Joy and Alti Firmansyah

Quiet also marks a reunion.

Quiet writer Kim-Joy previously teamed up with illustrator Alti Firmansyah on Turtle Bread: A Graphic Novel About Baking, Fitting In, and the Power of Friendship, a book that, true to its title, folded Kim-Joy’s culinary sensibility directly into its narrative DNA, using baking as both plot device and metaphor for belonging. That collaboration clearly left an impression on Firmansyah, who said returning for Quiet was an easy yes.

“From the moment I learned about the project, I knew I wanted to work with Kim-Joy again,” she said in a statement, adding that illustrating Kim-Joy’s “cookies and cakes and other creations” on the page remains “a treat”—a nod to the baking imagery that threads through Kim-Joy’s storytelling even when the subject matter turns serious.

For Quiet, though, Firmansyah’s focus shifted toward a different kind of character work: bringing the SereniBot to life. “I really feel a connection to Mary and have always wanted a sidekick, so designing and bringing the robot ‘to life’ was not only fun, but a great way for me to get to experience what that might be like,” she said. “Throughout the story, I would allow my imagination to flourish and was able to express my emotions in Mary’s facial expressions and body language, as well as in the other characters.”

Kim-Joy has been candid in the past about how her Bake-Off platform opened doors to conversations she cares about far more than sugar work—and Quiet continues that pattern. “So much of my work has mental health themes,” she said in a statement. “It’s something I care about deeply and return to again and again, because I think stories are one of the best ways we have of making people feel less alone—and I hope that anyone who reads it feels that.”

Ultimately, Quiet positions itself as a story for anyone who’s ever felt overlooked, misunderstood, or told to shrink themselves smaller—a reminder, as Kim-Joy puts it, that “courage doesn’t always roar.”

Quiet hits shelves in summer 2027 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold. Kim-Joy posted on her Instagram that you can comment on the announcement post for access to the preorders. See below:

Source: PEOPLE