category: Fiction

Spoilt Creatures

SPOILT CREATURES skilfully and elegantly explores female rage and transgression as, over the course of a blistering summer, a women’s commune’s precarious existence is irreversibly threatened. It has a totally enthralling ensemble cast of characters – including the brilliantly awful Blythe, with fascinating dynamics and tensions between them. It won the BPA Pitch Prize and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition and Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award; it will be published in June 2024 as one of Headline Tinder Press’s lead debuts.

‘People looked at the photographs and decided they knew everything about us. Believing in the oil spill of newspaper ink, how it clung to every shadow, conspiring grit and gloom. Always the same photos, of the farmhouse coming apart. Gaping windows like teeth punched out, streaks of blood across the kitchen floor where the women had walked with glass in their feet. […] People looked at them and came to their own conclusions – about Breach House, and about us. What kind of women we were. They never saw us in the summer, how we dug our hands into the soil and pulled life from it. The long evenings spent on the lawn. They never saw the life we had made for ourselves.’

 

32-year-old Iris is adrift: newly single, living at home with her mother and working a dead-end job. While out walking one day, she meets mysterious, beguiling Hazel, who lives at a women’s commune on a remote farm hidden in the Kent Downs. Iris is drawn to Hazel and the possibilities offered by an all-female space in a world where men have only let her down. At the farm, the women can be loud and dirty, live and eat abundantly, under the leadership of the gargantuan Blythe.

Over the course of a blistering summer, Iris throws herself into this alternative way of life, seizing on new experiences and hidden desires. But even among the women, she witnesses power struggles, cruelty and transgressions that will threaten their precarious existence. When a group of men arrive on the farm, the commune’s existence is thrown into question, culminating in an act of devastating violence.

 

Amy Twigg was born and raised in Kent. After studying Creative Writing at university, she moved to Surrey where she works as a freelance copywriter. She is also an alumnus of the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course and has been mentored by Tom de Freston. Amy is represented by Charlotte Seymour at Johnson & Alcock.

The Wardrobe Department

THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT by Elaine Garvey, which follows a young woman who has moved from rural Ireland to work as a dresser at a theatre in London’s West End. It is a short, spare novel, beautifully told and full of wise observations. It is about a woman finding herself; mothers and daughters, and the power of the past – and the potential of the present too. The publishing rights were secured by Canongate after a four-way auction, with publication planned for Spring 2025. You can read more in The Bookseller here. It has incredible parts particularly in Mairéad and her mother. I know theatre can be tricky in film and TV but this really is the backdrop for a powerful character led, female story.

It’s 2002 and Mairéad Sweeney has moved from rural Ireland to work in London’s West End. She is struggling to adjust to her workplace, The St. Leonard Theatre, and to life in London where she feels she does not belong and is disorientated. But then an unexpected journey home leads her to confront hidden truths about herself. Back in rural Ireland at the wake of her grandmother, she starts to reckon with the things — and people — she grew up with. It’s there that Mairéad gets a glimpse of who she is now and of what her life could be.

It’s partly inspired by Buile Suibhne, (Sweeney Astray), an old Irish poem about a king who is transformed into a bird and exiled from his people. It also comes out of Elaine’s personal experiences of fifteen years of working in the theatre in various visitor services roles.

Elaine Garvey is from Co. Sligo, Ireland. She completed an M.Phil. in Creative Writing in Trinity College, Dublin in 2000. Her short stories have been published in The Dublin Review and Winter Papers. She has worked as editorial and programme co-ordinator at The Stinging Fly, was awarded an agility grant for her writing and has recently been selected as a participant on a basic income scheme for artists by the Irish Department of Arts. THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT is her first novel.

Elaine is represented by Eleanor Birne at PEW Literary Agency.

Deadly Animals

Set in South Birmingham, DEADLY ANIMALS is a unique and beautifully written crime novel about a small community’s descent into devastation and desperation – and the undying spirit of youth in the face of darkness. It feels like you could really ramp up the horror elements. It was snapped up by Zaffre in a major two-book deal 6-figure pre-empt, and is scheduled for publication in Spring 2024. DEADLY ANIMALS was also a finalist in the Daily Mail First Novel competition; you can read more in The Bookseller here.

Thirteen-year-old Ava Bonney is unlike other children. Exceptionally bright, she has an obsessive interest in the rate at which dead animals decompose. The motorway she lives by regularly offers up roadkill, and in the dead of night Ava likes nothing better than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den so she can study it.

But one day, when she arrives, she stumbles across the body of local teenager Mickey Grant. 

Detective Seth Delahaye is given the case, but Ava is not the sort of person to step back and let someone else take charge when kids like her are dying. She has dealt with bullies all her life – from stepdads to playground trolls. How hard can it be to find a killer? 

Marie Tierney is a biology teacher who works in Birmingham. DEADLY ANIMALS is her first novel, and she is represented by Luigi Bonomi and LBA Books.

The Graveyard Shift

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT cleverly combines pop culture and horror in a millennial skewing slasher-crime, and sees a horror-loving radio show become the stage of a gruesome murder. Finely plotted with a brilliant central character, THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT is a magnificent resurgence of the literary slasher through a modern, feminist lens. It will be published by Datura Books in UK and US in September 2023. You can read more in The Bookseller announcement here.  Maria is an experienced screenwriter but also open to discussion about whether or not she would adapt this – strike dependent!

Tinsel Munroe’s dream of working in radio hasn’t turned out to be everything she hoped it would. She has her own show – the aptly titled The Graveyard Shift – where she celebrates the sounds of horror-cinema. It’s a pop cultural oasis for the niche audience she has cultivated, but the wage is barely enough to cover her rent and the midnight hours are putting a strain on her relationship with tattooist boyfriend, Zack. After three years at Melbourne’s coolest station, she’s seemingly no closer to a prime-time slot.

That is, until someone is murdered live on air.

Mistaking it for a Halloween prank at first, a visit from police informs Tinsel that the hysterical call was, in fact, the real deal. She is freaked out by the horrible incident, but her true crime obsessed sister Pandora is fascinated by it. While detectives assure them the killer will soon be caught, the bodies continue to drop with the killer striking at locations tied to Australian film history in increasingly gruesome ways. With a growing, macabre audience to her radio show – that potentially includes the killer – Tinsel begins receiving strange messages over the text lines. Her home and her workplace suddenly aren’t the sanctuaries she once thought they were.

Tinsel and her sister are left no choice but to team up with Detective James as they race to find the connection between her and the culprit. The people she thought she could trust are now those she should fear the most. In order to survive, Tinsel is going to have to listen to more than just the airwaves…

Maria Lewis is a best-selling author, screenwriter, and pop culture etymologist from Australia. She’s the author of the internationally published Supernatural Sisters series of eight books, which includes the Aurealis Award-winning THE WITCH WHO COURTED DEATH. As a screenwriter, she has worked across projects for AMC, Netflix, SBS, Ubisoft, ABC, DC Comics and many more. She’s the presenter, writer and producer of award-winning audio documentaries, and her journalism has appeared in publications around the world (such as the New York Post, Guardian and Daily Mail). THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT is the triumphant return to her first love: she started out as a crime beat reporter…

Maria is represented by Ed Wilson at Johnson and Alcock.

One

In ONE, Eve takes us to a future where a cataclysmic climate emergency has spawned a one-child policy in the UK, ruthlessly spawned by a totalitarian regime. It is pacey, grounded, twisty and tackles dark themes, but it has a powerful and heart-warming story of two estranged sisters at the core. It will be published by Orenda Books on 20th July 2023.

A powerful, prescient speculative thriller: a woman’s job of enforcing climate-emergency Britain’s one-child policy is compromised when she discovers a personal link to an illegal sibling on the Ministry hit-list, leading to a shocking discovery that changes everything…

One law. One child. Seven million crimes…

A cataclysmic climate emergency has spawned a one-child policy in the UK, ruthlessly enforced by a totalitarian regime. Compulsory abortion of ‘excess’ pregnancies and mandatory contraceptive implants are now the norm, and families must adhere to strict consumption quotas as the world descends into chaos.

Kai is a 25-year-old ‘baby reaper’, working for the Ministry of Population and Family Planning. If any of her assigned families attempt to exceed their child quota, she ensures they pay the price.

Until, one morning, she discovers that an illegal sibling on her Ministry hit-list is hers. To protect her parents from severe penalties, she must secretly investigate before anyone else finds out.

Kai’s hunt for her forbidden sister unearths much more than a dark family secret. As she stumbles across a series of heinous crimes perpetrated by the people she trusted most, she makes a catastrophic discovery that could bring down the government … and tear her family apart.

Eve Smith writes speculative fiction, mainly about the things that scare her. Longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize and described by Waterstones as “an exciting new voice in crime fiction”, Eve’s debut novel THE WAITING ROOMS, set in the aftermath of an antibiotic resistance crisis, was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award and was selected as a Book of the Month by Eric Brown in The Guardian who compared her writing to Michael Crichton’s. Her second novel, OFF TARGET, explores the idea of genetically engineered babies. Eve’s previous job as COO of an environmental charity took her to research projects across Asia, Africa and the Americas, and she has an ongoing passion for wild creatures, wild science and far-flung places. When she’s not writing she’s racing across fields after her dog, trying to organise herself and her family, or off exploring somewhere new.

Eve is represented by Harry Illingworth at DHH Literary Agency.

Once Upon A Legend

ONCE UPON A LEGEND is a heart-warming and hilarious take on the legend of King Arthur, which sees a rebellious young boy unwittingly summon giants once defeated by Merlin, and finds himself forced to stop them from unleashing chaos and destroying London. Ben recently signed a major six-book deal with Simon & Schuster, which includes three standalone middle grade adventures and two further Christmas books. ONCE UPON A LEGEND will be published in Autumn 2023.

 

13-year-old Marcus cannot cope with school. He hates it and everything to do with it.  Ever since his parents have split up, all he has felt is a huge anger inside him and he can’t help it if sometimes this boils over. His school though has had enough, and they summon him into the school to tell him he is being sent to a special school for one term – it is called Merlins – and it is where difficult children are sent. 

 

When Marcus arrives there, he is told the school is built on a magical site, a place where centuries ago, the wizard Merlin defeated the old giants roaming Europe, and confined them to the hills and mountains around the school. Marcus thinks this is nonsense until one night, he breaks into the headmaster’s office and steals what he believes is Merlin’s magic wand.  He climbs the nearest hill to the school and summons all the giants to come out of their prison if they dare.  Before he knows it, the giants do start coming out of the hills.  Angry at being confined for so long, they are determined to destroy London and the whole of Europe and reclaim their power.  Marcus’s trouble making has unleashed chaos and hell on Earth.  Only one person can now stop them – Marcus himself.  Can he team up with the other children and save the world? Will the one friendly giant be able to help him?  Can he find the hero within himself to save London from destruction? 

 

Large giants, one friendly giant (the rest not), Stonehenge, Merlin and magic gone wrong, humour, slapstick but also fast action drama with London about to be destroyed, a young boy angry with his parents’ divorce having to find inner strength. 

 

Ben Miller is the bestselling author of magical stories for all the family. He is also an actor, director and comedian, best-known for the ARMSTRONG AND MILLER sketch show, the JOHNNY ENGLISH and PADDINGTON films, BBC’s DEATH IN PARADISE and Netflix’s BRIDGERTON.

MRS S

An Observer best debut novel of 2023

‘The intense physicality of the novel’s emotions and its stylish, stripped-back prose make for an arresting pairing’ Hephzibah Anderson, Observer

‘Atmospheric and daring’ Guardian

‘There’s nothing else like it out there’ The Times

‘Bold and beautiful… Desire crackles through these pages like fire’  Telegraph

‘Embraces and then toys with our expectation of the lesbian romance… Spare and direct’ London Review of Books

 

MRS S is a love story told over a smoldering summer at an elite boarding school. While it’s a poignant portrayal of a particular queer experience – a romance between a young teacher and the headmaster’s wife – it’s also a universal tale of longing and what it is to see and be seen.

 

In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a young Australian woman arrives to take up the antiquated role of ‘matron’. 

Within this landscape of immense privilege, in which the girls can sense the slightest weakness in those around them, she finds herself unsure of her role, her accent and her body.

That is until she meets Mrs S, the headmaster’s wife, a woman who is her polar opposite: assured, sophisticated, a paragon of femininity.

Over the course of a long, restless heatwave, the matron finds herself irresistibly drawn ever closer into Mrs S’s world and their unspoken desire blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. 

But, as the summer begins to fade, both women know that a choice must be made.

 

K Patrick is based in Glasgow. Their poetry has appeared in Poetry Review, Granta and Five Dials, and was shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize in 2021, the same year that K was also shortlisted for The White Review’s Short Story Prize.

In 2020 they were runner-up in the Ivan Juritz Prize and the Laura Kinsella Fellowship.

Perilous Times

Sir Kay and his fellow knights awake from their mythical slumber whenever Britain has need of them; they fought at Agincourt and at the Somme. But in these perilous modern times, the realm is more divided than ever, a dragon has been seen for the first time in centuries, and Kay is not the only ancient and terrible thing to come crawling up out of the ground . . .

Perilous Times is a fiercely entertaining contemporary take on the myths of Camelot, which asks: what happens when the Knights of the Round Table return to fix the problems of the modern world?

Under Your Spell

UNDER YOUR SPELL was sold in a two-book deal to Simon & Schuster after a seven-way auction, and will be published as a lead romance debut in June 2024. DAISY JONES AND THE SIX meets PRACTICAL MAGIC with a touch of THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, the novel balances romance and comedy sublimely, following Clemmie who, after drunkenly casting a spell with her sisters after a bad break-up, promptly lands a dream summer job as housekeeper for world-famous rockstar Theo Elliott.

Clemmie’s life is a mess: she’s lost her job, her flat, her boyfriend (who took everything and the cat).

She’s also the strait-laced daughter of an aging rock-god famed for fathering three daughters with three different women – and it’s Clemmie’s beloved sisters Lil and Serena who fly to the rescue now. Together, they revive a witchy ritual from their teenage years – the Break-Up Spell: three wishes for the one who is heartbroken, and a curse on whoever broke their heart.

Serena wishes for hot sex (because Serena is Serena)

Clemmie wishes for a job that she loves (because Clemmie overthought things, as per usual)

Lil wishes for big soulmate love (because Lil is soppy AF)

And we won’t dwell on the curse, but just know that it’s…itchy.

When Clemmie has the hottest sex of her life with a stranger (AT A FUNERAL), it looks like the spell is finally working its magic. And when she lands a summer job as housekeeper for enigmatic musician Theo Eliott, on retreat to write his next album, can big soulmate love be far behind?

But when the stranger from the funeral turns out to BE enigmatic musician Theo Eliott, everything changes. Because Clemmie has secrets of her own that not even six weeks alone with a world-famous heartthrob like Theo Eliott can dispel. As their summer together turns into its own kind of magic, is Clemmie cursed to repeat the mistakes of her past – or will her future see all her wishes come true?

UNDER YOUR SPELL is the adult romcom debut from YA romance queen Laura Wood. Published in seven languages, Laura’s dreamy love stories for teens include A SKY PAINTED GOLD, which was nominated for the YA Book Prize, two Books Are My Bag awards, and the RNA Romantic Novel Of The Year 2019, and AGENCY FOR SCANDAL which was published earlier this year. Laura lives in Warwickshire with her husband and their dog Bea; she has a PhD in Victorian Literature and her many likes include: recipe books, Jilly Cooper, poetry, cosy woollen jumpers, Edith Nesbit, crisp autumn leaves, Jack Gilbert, new stationery, sensation fiction, salted caramel, and Rufus Sewell’s cheek-bones. Laura is represented by Louise Lamont at Luigi Bonomi Associates.

Into The Night: A Year With the Police

INTO THE NIGHT: A YEAR WITH THE POLICE is Matt’s account of working for two years as a special police constable in Lambeth, and explores the dissonance that inevitably developed between Matt’s two lives: by day, he was a trusted teacher at a Brixton primary school; by night, he was anonymised by a uniform that drew deep suspicion. At its heart, INTO THE NIGHT is an exploration of what it would mean to reframe policing as a caring, rather than enforcement, role, and a luminous portrait of South London – the epicentre of Britain’s struggle against racist policing, surfacing hidden histories of resistance and abuse. It featured in The Guardian last week, and was published by Picador on 18th May.

A former carer, primary school teacher and education researcher, Matt Lloyd-Rose became a volunteer police officer to try to understand the challenges facing young people in Brixton, the place he lived and taught. He got more than he bargained for. Each Friday evening, he put on the uniform and policed South London: racing through it on blue lights, patrolling its streets, entering a parallel version of a place he thought he knew.

Into the Night takes the reader on a journey to the heart of our society’s most complex and controversial institution, showing the best and worst of ordinary policing: from macho thrill-seeking and shocking misogyny to quiet moments of kindness and care. Its pages are filled with the homeless, the lonely, the sick and the angry, with teenage gang members, confused drunks, violent partners, runaway dogs and an illegal hot-dog vendor who won’t take no for an answer.

The details of Matt’s portrait of police work is astonishing: from fights in bookies and takeaways to the story of a teenage girl who was taken from her own home and held overnight for breaching her parole conditions. On the one hand, there’s the constant background rumble of gang wars; on the other, the shocking misogyny and racism that proliferates amongst the police force itself. Matt’s writing process started with him surreptitiously taking notes while on his night shifts, which he’d write up the next morning in Phoenix – the Brixton café that became the portal between his policing and his teaching lives. Matt then layered in the research he’d conducted into the area’s Black British community, who are so often the victims of police brutality, along with his research into policing theory and criminology. Matt is represented by Patrick Walsh at PEW Literary Agency.