category: Fiction

The Stirrings

No life exists outside the times.

This is a story about one young woman coming of age, and about the place and time that shaped her: the North of England in the 1970s and 80s.

About the scorching summer of 1976 – the last Catherine Taylor would spend with both her parents in their home in Sheffield.

About the Yorkshire Ripper, the serial killer whose haunting presence in Catherine’s childhood was matched only by the aching absence of her own father.

About a country thrown into disarray by the nuclear threat and the Miners’ Strike, just as Catherine’s adolescent body was invaded by a debilitating illness.

About 1989’s ‘Second Summer of Love’, a time of sexual awakening for Catherine, and the unforeseen consequences that followed it.

About a tragic accident, and how the insidious dangers facing women would became increasingly apparent as Catherine crossed into to adulthood.

Catherine Taylor was born in Waikato, New Zealand and grew up in Sheffield, South Yorkshire from the age of three. She studied English and Philosophy at Cardiff University and has worked in the book industry since 1992, for, variously, the British Library, Microsoft Encarta, Amazon, The Folio Society and most recently as the deputy director of English PEN. She is a book critic and features writer for Guardian Review, New Statesman, FT Life & Arts, The Economist, Times Literary Supplement, Irish Times, Prospect and the i. She is co-founder of the Brixton Review of Books, a non-profit literary quarterly, and editor of The Book of Sheffield: A City in Short Fiction (Comma Press, 2019) which was chosen as the Big City Read 2020 by Sheffield Libraries. The Stirrings: Essays in Northern Time is forthcoming from Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

 

Glass Houses

Somewhere, in a box in Margot Yates’ attic there’s a video of Gethin by the lake at Ty Gwydr. He’s young – nineteen, maybe twenty. It’s late spring and dusk, and a low sun leaks white light into the horizon behind the dark fringe of trees. Olwen is filming. Gethin narrows his eyes at the camera. Her bodiless voice says to him, I love it here. He says, good. This place is ours.

Gethin Thomas is struggling to make ends meet in his rural hometown in north Wales. Bright and handsome but unambitious, he works as a forester, but the thing that keeps him going is Ty Gwydr, a beautiful lakeside house he keeps an eye on for its absent English owners. The house has been empty for so long he’s come to think of it as his.

That is until the owners decide to sell, sending Geth into freefall. And when he discovers that Olwen, his teenage love who left him and their small town in north Wales for a new life in London, has returned with her husband, Geth and Olwen will find themselves pulled back into the past and what could have been – or still could be.

But soon mysterious messages start arriving at the house, and Geth and Olwen must question whether this is the love story they thought it was, or whether there might be something altogether more sinister lurking beneath the surface.

Francesca Reece is a writer, translator and bookseller from north Wales. She was the 2019 winner of the Desperate Literature Prize, judged by Eley Williams, Claire-Louise Bennett and Sam Riviere, for her short story ‘So Long Sarajevo/They Miss You So Badly’, and has had work featured in The London Magazine, Banshee, and Elle UK. After several years spent living in Paris, she is now based in London where she works at independent bookshop BookBar. She was selected for the Hay Festival 2023 Writers at Work residency, a creative development programme for emerging Welsh talent. Francesca’s debut, VOYEUR, is currently in development with Urban Myth. Francesca is represented by Charlotte Seymour at Johnson and Alcock.

The Glass Woman

When you wake up without your memories, who can you really trust?

Pioneering scientist Iris Henderson chose to be her own first test-subject for an experimental therapy, placing a piece of technology into her brain. At least, this is what everyone tells her. Trouble is, Iris is now without her memories so she doesn’t know what the therapy is or why she would ever decide to volunteer for it.

Everyone warns her to leave it alone, but Iris doesn’t know who to trust. As she scratches beneath the surface of her seemingly happy marriage and successful career, a catastrophic chain of events is set in motion. Secrets will be revealed that have the capacity to destroy her whole life, but Iris can’t stop digging.

Alice McIlroy attended the Faber Academy’s ‘Writing A Novel’ course in 2018 where she started writing her debut. Since then, The Glass Woman has been long listed for the Stylist Prize for Feminist Fiction 2021 and she is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia. Alice is represented by Sam Copeland at RCW Literary Agency.

Stitch

A compelling, atmospheric and gothic Frankenstein-inspired adventure by an award-winning Irish author. Stitch is not a monster – he’s a creation. He and his friend Henry Oaf were brought to life by the genius Professor Hardacre, and have spent all their days in a castle deep in the woods, far from humankind. But when the Professor dies and his pompous nephew comes to take over the laboratory, they soon find out that his sights are set not on scientific discovery, but personal glory. And Henry is his next experiment. Can Stitch and Henry escape his clutches and make their way in a world they were never built for – and may never be ready for them?

The End of Summer

THE END OF SUMMER is a literary psychological suspense about deception and betrayal and the bond between mothers and daughters, spanning the 1980s to the present day. This is Charlotte’s fifth novel. Her espionage trilogy (PART OF THE FAMILY, A DOUBLE LIFE, and THE SECOND WOMAN) is currently in development, and her standalone EDITH AND KIM is being developed by Met Film, and Charlotte herself is adapting the trilogy and EDITH AND KIM. THE END OF SUMMER will be published by The Borough Press in summer 2024.

The End of Summer follows the secret life of Judy McVee, who whilst attempting to hustle her way into a community of wealthy WASPs in the US finds herself falling in love with the man she is trying to deceive. Marriage follows, with Judy managing to conceal her chequered past from her husband, Rory, and their daughter, Francesca- until the day, decades later, when journalists descend on Francesca’s perfect family home claiming the case of her father’s murder has been reopened, after twenty years -and Judy is the prime suspect…

Charlotte Philby worked for the Independent for eight years as a columnist, editor and reporter, and was shortlisted for the Cudlipp Prize for her investigative journalism at the 2013 Press Awards. A former contributing editor and feature writer at Marie Claire, she has written for the New Statesman, Elle, Telegraph, Guardian and Sunday Times, been interviewed on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking, BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends and presented documentaries for the BBC World Service and The One Show. Charlotte is the granddaughter of Britain’s most infamous communist double-agent, the elusive ‘third man’ in the Cambridge spy ring.

The Turnglass

THE TURNGLASS is a dual narrative that blends fact and fiction, revolving around two homes called Turnglass House – one in 1880s England and the other in 1930s California. It was published by Simon & Schuster on 31st August, and is a Sunday Times Bestseller.

1880s England. On the bleak island of Ray, off the Essex coast, an idealistic young doctor, Simeon Lee, is called from London to treat his cousin, Parson Oliver Hawes, who is dying. Parson Hawes, who lives in the only house on the island – Turnglass House – believes he is being poisoned. And he points the finger at his sister-in-law, Florence. Florence was declared insane after killing Oliver’s brother in a jealous rage and is now kept in a glass-walled apartment in Oliver’s library. And the secret to how she came to be there is found in Oliver’s tête-bêche journal, where one side tells a very different story from the other.

1930s California. Celebrated author Oliver Tooke, the son of the state governor, is found dead in his writing hut off the coast of the family residence, Turnglass House. His friend Ken Kourian doesn’t believe that Oliver would take his own life. His investigations lead him to the mysterious kidnapping of Oliver’s brother when they were children, and the subsequent secret incarceration of his mother, Florence, in an asylum. But to discover the truth, Ken must decipher clues hidden in Oliver’s final book, a tête-bêche novel – which is about a young doctor called Simeon Lee . . . 

Gareth is the author of two WWII thrillers – LIBERATION SQUARE and THE WINTER AGENT. This novel marks a new creative direction for Gareth – playful, original and hugely entertaining. Gareth read English literature at the University of St Andrews and trained at East 15 Acting School. He writes about social affairs, travel and the arts for a wide variety of British newspapers. In 2013 he directed a documentary about therapeutic art at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London (‘Bedlam’). He is represented by Jon Wood at RCW Literary Agency.

The Changing Man

THE CHANGING MAN follows seventeen-year-old Ife as she finds herself pulled into mysteries of her new boarding school, determined to uncover the truth behind its decades-old-legend – the legend of the Changing Man.The rights were sold in the US in a six-figure auction, and is a lead title for Macmillan in the UK and US. It is published on 7th September in the UK, and 26th September in the US.

 

Just because they let you in . . . it doesn’t mean they’ll let you out.

When seventeen-year-old Ife joins Nithercott School through its prestigious Urban Achievers Program, she knows immediately that she doesn’t fit. Wandering its echoing halls, she must fend off cruel taunts from the students and condescending attitudes from the teachers. When she finds herself thrown into detention for the foreseeable future, she strikes up an unlikely alliance with Ben, a troublemaker with an annoyingly cute smile. They’ve both got reasons to want to get out of Nithercott – Ben’s brother is missing, and no one seems to be bothering to find him.

For Ife, it’s just another strange element of this school that doesn’t care about its students. But as more and more people start going missing, including one of Ife’s only friends, she starts to feel haunted.

Who is the figure she’s started seeing in the shadowy halls, who looks mysteriously like herself? And is there any truth in to the strange urban legend that travels the school like mist . . . the legend of the Changing Man?

 

Tomi Oyemakinde grew up in London, before being uprooted at the age of 6 to head across the North Sea to the Netherlands. Going on to live in a further two countries across two continents, he was anchored by a scenic boarding school and fantastical stories – namely Richard Adam’s Watership Down. Despite a love for stories and a desire to write, Tomi found that finishing was a lot harder than starting. But once he discovered the stories he wanted to tell, he couldn’t put pen to paper fast enough. Now, Tomi is committed to crafting stories centred on Black protagonists thriving across genres, audiences & worlds. When Tomi is not busy writing, he can be found daydreaming about his future dog (namely a Rottweiler named Pan) and geeking out over all things anime.

 

Tomi is represented by Claire Wilson at RCW Literary Agency in the UK, and Pete Knapp at Park & Fine in the US.

 

How (Not) to Have an Arranged Marriage

“Full of the compassion, humanity and mischievous sense of fun you would expect from Dr Amir. This is a complete delight from a born storyteller.” Lorraine Kelly

 

How (Not) to Have an Arranged Marriage is the heartwarming and entertaining multi-generational debut novel from Dr Amir Khan.

Amir has nearly 250k Twitter followers and he’s been getting some amazing exposure for the book so far, including an appearance on Graham Norton’s Virgin Radio show and Loose Women (on 19th Sept) – it’s also Heat Mag’s ‘book of the week’.

Set mostly in Birmingham and Manchester, the book’s an entertaining and heartwarming “east meets west” tale of love, friendship, family and South Asian culture, drawing in part on Amir’s own experiences of trying to find marriage by committee

We follow the romantic adventures of Yousef, his sister, Rehana and best friend, Rohit as they embark on the ups and downs of modern arranged marriage in British South Asian community, ending with two “Big Fat Asian Weddings” – which Amir was determined to show in all their glory!

 

He’s the perfect catch (according to his mother)

Yousef is the golden child to his strict Pakistani parents, overshadowing his younger sister, Rehana. As he finishes his medical degree in London, Yousef’s life appears to be mapped out for him: become a doctor, marry a suitable girl of his parents’ choosing and, above all, make his family proud. Then Yousef meets Jess.

A fellow medical student, Jess presents a complication to the plan. Suddenly, Yousef finds himself torn between two worlds – keeping each a secret from the other.

Then, as graduation day looms, Yousef’s mother informs him that she’s started looking for his wife . ..

 

Dr Amir Khan is an NHS doctor, GP Trainer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds School of Medicine and the University of Bradford.

A regular contributor to ITV’s Good Morning Britain and Lorraine, he has presented and contributed to many popular TV shows. His first book, The Doctor Will See You Now was published by Ebury and was a Sunday Times bestseller.

Amir is represented by Barbara Levy and How (Not) to Have an Arranged Marriage is the first of his two-book deal with Macmillan.

Shieldmaiden

“A story of impassioned perseverance that whips along with mythological magic” SciFi Now

“As someone who has read countless retellings of legends from all different perspectives, I enjoyed Emmerichs taking the essence of Beowulf and making it [her] own… This is Fryda’s tale to tell” SFbook.com

“Emmerichs sets a lively pace with her bright and breezy prose” SFX

Sharon Emmerichs’ epic fantasy novel, SHIELDMAIDEN, is a rich and unique female-led take on the Beowulf universe, told from the point of view of characters rarely represented in the fantasy world; a disabled young warrior woman and her best friend and love interest, Theow, a slave from Ireland whom she is forbidden to be with.

 

Having grown up hearing tales of her uncle, the great King Beowulf, Fryda’s one desire is to become a shield maiden in her own right. Yet a terrible childhood accident has left Fryda disabled – thus, she believes, thwarting her dream of becoming a warrior-woman for good. But still, somehow, she feels an uncontrollable power begin to rise within herself.

Meanwhile, a great celebration of Beowulf’s reign is underway, and Fryda’s house is soon overrun with foreign kings and chieftains. Amidst the drunken revelry, a discovery is made that threatens the safety of Fryda’s entire clan – and her own life. Enraged, Fryda resolves to fight for her people, no matter the cost… and all the while, her powers seem only to grow stronger.

But she is not the only one to feel its effects. For, buried deep in her gilded lair, a dragon is drawn to Fryda’s untamed power, and is slowly awakening from a long, cursed sleep…

Sharon Emmerichs was born in Sweden to American parents and grew up in Wisconsin near Lake Michigan. She has been a writer all her life, from the time she scribbled ‘words’ and pictures on pieces of paper, stapled them together, and called it a book. Her love of stories later translated into an English degree, and then she went on to get her MA and PhD in medieval and early modern literature… and because she collects degrees the way some people collect stamps or baseball cards, she graduated her creative writing MFA in fiction in 2021. She is an Associate Professor of Shakespeare and medieval literature in beautiful Alaska, where she lives with Juneau, the derpiest Siberian husky ever.

Sharon is represented by Kristina Perez at Perez Literary

The Chief Shepherdess

The Film/TV Rights are currently under option.

“I grab the motionless lamb, which is frighteningly slippery, and scramble on my feet, swinging its little body around to help it breathe. I see its chest move, then it sneezes and starts breathing. It’s stunned by its delivery experience. As am I. I’m high on adrenaline. Tears are streaming down my face. I pop the lamb down on the ground and start frantically rubbing its tiny body… Looking back, I can see that this was one of the first moments of questioning whether I’m truly cut out for farming and realising that the answer might be… yes”


Zoë Colville spent years in a fancy hair salon with a long list of clients, living on cigarettes, croissants, and a shoestring. It was everything she’d ever wanted. But when an unexpected and overwhelming loss caused her life to shift unexpectedly, she found herself on a different path. One where the only use for a hairdryer is warming new-born lambs; where the cycle of life on a farm gives new meaning on purpose, and where nature is both a strict teacher and a balm to soothe the pressures of everyday life.

In this memoir, she speaks vivaciously, humourously, and candidly about the lessons learned along the way, from mental health, social media and identity to surviving as an entrepreneur in a shifting economy. And through those lessons – in love, loss, and lambing – discovering something even more important: that it’s always the right time to take a bold step and try something new.

Zoë is represented by Charlie Campbell at Greyhound Literary Agency. Zoe has also featured in Country Living’s ‘Nature & My Mental Health’ video series, which you can see here.