Status: Recently Optioned Books

END OF STORY is a piece of highly original speculative fiction, with an unpredictable twist, set in a world where fiction has been banned by the government for 5 years – and reading fairytales to children is punishable my law. Perhaps too much imagination can be a dangerous thing… It will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in March 2023 – you can check out the Bookseller announcement here.

It’s the year 2035 and fiction has been banned by the government for five years. Writing novels is a crime. Reading fairytales to children is punishable by law.

Fern Dostoy is a criminal. Officially, she has retrained in a new job outside of the arts but she still scrawls in a secret notepad in an effort to capture what her life has become: her work on a banned phone line, reading bedtime stories to sleep-starved children; Hunter, the young boy who calls her and has captured her heart; and the dreaded visits from government officials.

But as Fern begins to learn more about Hunter, doubts begin to surface. What are they both hiding? And who can be trusted?

Louise Swanson is the pseudonym for Louise Beech, who has published seven novels with Orenda Books. THE LION TAMER WHO LOST (2018) was longlisted for the Polari Prize while CALL ME STARGIRL (2019) and THE MOUNTAIN IN MY SHOE (2016) were both longlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize. Louise is represented by Emily Glenister at DHH Literary Agency.

THE GHOST THEATRE is a dazzling punk re-imagining of Elizabethan London through the eyes of a clairvoyant, bird-worshiping protagonist and her unlikely theatre troupe. It is gripping and magic, deftly crafted and filmic in its descriptions. The UK and Commonwealth rights were snapped up by Bloomsbury in a 48-hour pre-empt, and will be published in 2023. US Rights are with Overlook. You can read the bookseller announcement here.

On a rooftop in Elizabethan London two worlds collide. Shay is a messenger-girl and trainer of hawks who sees the future in the patterns of birds. Nonesuch is the dark star of the city’s fabled child theatre scene, as famous as royalty yet lowly as a beggar.

Together they create The Ghost Theatre: a troupe staging magical plays in London’s hidden corners. As their hallucinatory performances incite rebellion among the city’s outcasts, the pair’s relationship sparks and burns against a backdrop of the plague and a London in flames. Their growing fame sweeps them up into the black web of the Elizabethan court, where Shay and Nonesuch discover that if they fly too high, a fall is sure to come.

Mat Osman is the bassist and founder member of iconic British rock band Suede and a composer of music for TV and films. He also worked as a culture journalist during the noughties, writing about art and travel for papers, magazines and online. Mat is represented by Victoria Hobbs at AM Heath.

Published in September, WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND follows Lauren as she begins a new life with her therapist husband Paul. Things gradually become not quite as they seem, and the mystery enhances as we are introduced to Paul’s first wife Eliza as she desperately tries to escape Paul’s web, whilst Lauren becomes more and more trapped in it. As we move between the perspectives, we are left with the question – what ever did happen to Eliza? With a chilling twist, WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND feels reminiscent of compulsive thrillers such as THE GIRL BEFORE and CLOSE TO ME.

Lauren can’t believe she’s escaped her old life in London for a new start with her partner, Paul, and his two young children. Haunted by her past, Lauren knows how lucky she is: a dream home, a ready-made family. And she also knows how much she could lose.

But as Lauren struggles to adjust to motherhood, her fears grow. She’ll never live up to the ghost of Paul’s perfect wife, or help him forget his grief over her tragic death. And as village rumours begin to swirl about their house in the woods, Lauren feels ever more isolated – despite Paul’s reassurances. She wants to trust Paul – she owes him everything – but how can she, when she can barely trust herself?

In her other life, Emily makes TV – having worked on award winning television programmes including EDUCATING YORKSHIRE, FIRST DATES, and SAD: WHO DARES WINS – as well as developing original programming for all the main broadcasters. Her lifelong fixation with story and character is the thread that runs through her work, and ultimately led to the pursuit of a writing career. Her debut MY BEST FRIEND’S SECRET was published by Quercus in 2021, and WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND was published by Quercus in September 2022. Emily is represented by Teresa Chris at Teresa Chris Literary Agency.

APPLIANCE is a highly inventive and humane novel about a world obsessed with progress, and a story of how technology and our hunger for new things has the capacity to erode our human rights and freedoms. It is the first novel from the award-winning poet, and has received excellent reviews (including in The Telegraph and The Scotsman) since its publication in May 2022, and has been included in the best science fiction lists of 2022 in The Guardian, The Times, and the Financial Times.

 ‘Are they paying you extra for this? You’d better be getting something. For the inconvenience, I mean. Here for the whole weekend is what they said. What if we’d had guests? They never asked. And in any case what are the dangers? Being tested like lab rats, we are. Did they even try to provide any assurance it was all perfectly-‘

This is the prototype. The first step to a new future. A future that will be easy and abundant. A future in which distance is no longer a barrier to human contact. And all it takes is a simple transport unit, in every home, every street, every town. Quick. Clean. Easy. A future driven by data, not emotion. And so begins the journey of a new technology that will soon change the world and everyone in it – the sceptics and the converts, the innocents and the evangelists. A scientific wonder that quickly becomes an everyday aspect of life.

 But what of our inherent messiness? In a world preoccupied with progress, what will happen to the things that make us human: the memories, the fears, the love, the blood, the contradictions, the mortality? As we push for a sense of perfection, what do we stand to lose?

Questioning, innovative and shot through with a rich humanity, Appliance is much more than a novel. It examines our faith in technology, our hunger for new things and the rapid changes affecting all our lives. It challenges us to stop and reflect on the future we want, the systems we trust, and what really matters to us.

J O Morgan is a Scottish author. His 2018 work Assurances, looking at the RAF’s early involvement with maintaining the nuclear deterrent, won that year’s Costa Poetry Award. He has been twice shortlisted for both the Forward and the T S Eliot prize. His novel Pupa, in which human society is depicted with a different biological lifecycle, was published in 2021.

J O Morgan is represented by Eleanor Birne at PEW Literary Agency, and APPLIANCE was published by Jonathan Cape in May 2022.