category: Fiction

Arrangements in Blue

The Film/TV Rights are currently under option.

In her debut non-fiction, Key uses Joni Mitchell’s seminal album BLUE as her guide in navigating experiences of loneliness, desire, disappointment and romantic love. It was snapped up Jonathan Cape in the UK after a 7-way auction, and was published 6th April 2023. US Rights were secured by Liveright, and was published on 9th May.

When poet Amy Key was growing up, she looked forward to a life shaped by romance, fuelled by desire, longing and the conventional markers of success that come when you share a life with another person. But that didn’t happen for her. Now in her forties, she sets out to explore the realities of a life lived in the absence of romantic love.

Using Joni Mitchell’s seminal album Blue – which shaped Key’s expectations of love – as an anchor, Arrangements in Blue elegantly honours a life lived completely by, and for, oneself. Building a home, travelling alone, choosing whether to be a mother, recognising her own milestones, learning the limits of self-care and the expansive potential of self-friendship, Key uncovers the many forms of connection and care that often go unnoticed.

With profound candour and intimacy, Arrangements in Blue explores the painful feelings we are usually too ashamed to discuss: loneliness, envy, grief and failure. The result is a book which inspires us to live and love more honestly.

Key is a poet and writer based in London. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Luxe (Salt, 2013) and Isn’t Forever (Bloodaxe, 2018), which was a book of the year in the Guardian, New Statesman, Times and Irish Times. Her poems have been widely published and anthologised, and her essays have appeared in At the Pond (Daunt Books, 2019), Granta, Poetry Review and elsewhere. Her essay about Mitchell, “A Breed of Blue”, was published by Granta last December. Amy is represented by Angelique Tran Van Sang at Felicity Bryan Associates.

Love On The Menu

LOVE ON THE MENU is a beautifully written and compelling novel that follows Gia as she strives to build a life in London far from her home in India, when a chance note inside a guilt-ridden takeaway leads her down an unexpected path. It won the Avon-Mushens Commercial Fiction Prize in 2021 and was published by Harper Collins in UK and US in April 2023. 

Gia thrives on taking risks. After having her heart broken back home in India, she moved to London alone to chase her dreams.

Ben always plays things safe. He works the same job in the same restaurant, night after night.

But tonight, is going to be different. Because fate will mean one of Ben’s deliveries goes to Gia’s apartment and in return a note from her will make its way back to him at the restaurant. Ben and Gia have never met. But with each new delivery, Ben slips in a note of his own and waits patiently for her reply.

One by one, these notes transform their lives in unexpected ways and an unlikely and truly unique love story begins.

Born in Calcutta, Mimi Deb worked as a journalist for leading national dailies and magazines, before producing TV dramas and, later, feature films. When not writing, Mimi is probably running along the Thames thinking of her next story, or next meal. Mimi is represented by Rachel Neely at Mushens Entertainment.

The Institution

Dr Connie Woolwine has five days to catch a killer.

On a locked ward in the world’s highest-security prison hospital for the criminally insane, a nurse has been murdered and her newborn baby kidnapped. A ransom must be paid, and the clock is ticking.

Forensic profiler Dr Connie Woolwine is renowned for her ability to get inside the mind of a murderer. Now she must go deep undercover among the most deranged and dangerous men on earth, and use her unique skills to find the baby – before it’s too late.

She has five days to catch the killer. But with the walls of The Institution closing in on her, will her sanity last that long?

An Amazon #1 best-selling author, Helen Fields is a former criminal and family law barrister. The last book in her Scottish set crime series, PERFECT KILL, was longlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger in 2020, and others have been longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Scottish crime novel of the year. Helen also writes as HS Chandler, and wrote legal thriller Degrees of Guilt.  In 2020, Perfect Remains was shortlisted for the Bronze Bat, Dutch debut crime novel of the year. Now translated into 20 languages, and also selling in the USA, Canada & Australasia, Helen’s books have won global recognition. Her historical thriller THESE LOST & BROKEN THINGS came out in May 2020. Her first standalone thriller – THE SHADOW MAN – was published in 2021. She is represented by Caroline Hardman at Hardman & Swainson.

Purgatory Poisoning

Winner of the ‘Comedy Women in Print Prize’, this hilarious crime novel brings a grounded fantasy element to the cosy crime genre, with shades of GHOSTS and THE GOOD PLACE.

 

How do you solve your own murder when you’re already dead?

Purgatory (noun):
1. Where the dead are sent to atone.
2. A place of suffering or torment.
3. A youth hostel where the occupants play Scrabble and the mattresses are paper thin.

When Dave wakes up in his own personal purgatory (St Ives Youth Hostel circa 1992), he’s shocked to discover he’s dead. And worse – he was murdered.

Heaven doesn’t know who did it, so, with the help of two rogue angels, Dave must uncover the truth.

As divine forces from both sides start to play the game, can Dave get out of this alive? Or at the very least, with his soul intact?

Rebecca Rogers grew up in Birmingham, UK on a diet of Blackadder and Monty Python. For a long time, she thought Michael Palin was her uncle (he’s not). Now a civil servant by day and writer by night, she’s a proud mum to two grown up boys and lives in the glorious south west of England.

The Purgatory Poisoning is her first novel and won the Comedy Women in Print Unpublished Prize 2021.

The Girl Who Broke the Sea

THE GIRL WHO BROKE THE SEA is a gripping, mind-expanding YA “sci-fi” thriller set in the deep ocean about one girl’s path to self-acceptance and belonging – and a community’s terrifying struggle for survival.

“An atmospheric, satisfying YA sci-fi thriller” Guardian

“Riveting debut” Waterstones

“An ominous, evocative science-fiction thriller” New Scientist

 

Something sinister is stirring in the depths of the ocean….And it’s calling out to Lily….

Lily’s emotional problems run deep – three miles deep.

After she gets kicked out of school for her destructive behaviour, Lily agrees to an unusual fresh start: going with her mum to live at Deephaven, an experimental deep-sea mining rig and research station located at the bottom of the ocean. But Lily instantly regrets her decision: claustrophobic and isolated, it’s hardly her idea of home.

Turns out, Deephaven has problems of its own… Lily and her mum quickly learn that the head scientist has disappeared – just as he was on the brink of a shocking discovery. In the darkness of the deep, something is stirring … something dangerous.

 

A Connors is a former physicist and former child who likes writing stories and building unlikely, poorly thought-through gadgets.

He spent his PHD underground at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research), helping to design one of the detectors for the Large Hadron Collider. He’s also taught physics in Sudan, sold encyclopaedias in Chicago and fit Wi-Fi in the refugee camps in Greece. In his spare time he manages an engineering team for Google Health, a project that aims to use big data and machine learning to improve the quality of healthcare. He lives in Hertfordshire with his partner, two boys and a dog.

THE GIRL WHO BROKE THE SEA is his debut novel. Connors is represented by Kate Shaw at the Shaw Agency.

So Pretty

A darkly beautiful and modern gothic thriller that tells a gripping story of identity and obsession.

Teddy Colne arrives in the small town of Rye, hoping to settle down and leave his past behind him. But fear blisters through the streets, and the locals warn him to avoid a shop known only as Berry & Vincent, where people have been known to come to a bad end. Teddy, however, is strangely determined to discover more about the establishment and why everyone fears its proprietor, and so he takes a job behind its dusty, creepy windows.

Ada moved to Rye with her young son, Albie, to escape a damaged childhood and years of never fitting in, but here she’s lonely, and ostracised by the community. Ada is ripe for affection and friendship but the people of Rye smell the desperation on her.
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As old secrets bleed out into this town, so too will a mystery about a family who vanished 50 years earlier, and a community living on a knife-edge. Teddy looks for answers, thinking he is safe, but some truths are better left undisturbed. And inevitably his past will find him here, just as it has always found him before. 

And before long, it will find Ada too.

 

Ronnie Turner grew up in Cornwall, the youngest in a large family. At an early age, she discovered a love of literature. She now lives in the South-West with her family and three dogs and works as a Senior Waterstones Bookseller and barista. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and taking long walks on the coast.

Ronnie is represented by Emily Glenister at the DHHL Literary Agency.

The Witches of Vardo

THE WITCHES OF VARDØ is the spellbinding new novel by Anya Bergman. Combining meticulously researched historical fiction with magical realism, this is a rousing, cinematic fictionalization of the real women put on trial in one of the largest witch trials in Scandinavia, 1662 – full of hope and empowerment.

“Powerful, deeply moving” Sunday Times and featured as a Sunday Times International Bestseller

 “A passionate indictment of the patriarchy…a vibrant exaltation of the resilience of women … Anya Bergman summons a historic witch trial with breath-taking detail and immediacy” Hannah Kent

Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. After recently widowed Zigri’s affair with the local merchant is discovered, she is sent to the fortress at Vardø to be tried as a witch.

Zigri’s daughter Ingeborg sets off into the wilderness to try to bring her mother back home. Accompanying her on this quest is Maren – herself the daughter of a witch – whose wild nature and unconquerable spirit gives Ingeborg the courage to venture into the unknown, and to risk all she has to save her family.

Also captive in the fortress is Anna Rhodius, once the King of Denmark’s mistress, who has been sent in disgrace to the island of Vardø. What will she do – and who will she betray – to return to her privileged life at court?

These Witches of Vardø are stronger than even the King. In an age weighted against them, they refuse to be victims. They will have their justice. All they need do is show their power.

 

Anya Bergman became interested in the witch trials of Vardø and the vivid folk tales of the north while living in Norway. Travelling to the Steilneset memorial, in which Louise Bourgeois and Peter Zumthor commemorated those persecuted as witches, she became fascinated by their stories.

Now resident in Ireland, she is currently undertaking a PhD by Published Works at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland where she also lectures as well as tutoring for Jericho Writers. She recently wrote an article for the Guardian earlier this year called How We Fell Under the Spell of Witcherature.

Anya is represented by Marianne Gunn O’Connor

Operation Nativity

It’s time to get festive! Published by Usborne in October, this madcap comedy finds Oscar and Molly in a race to save Christmas…

When Oscar and Molly rush outside to investigate a crash in the night, they’re not expecting to find a dazed Angel Gabriel wandering around their grandparents’ back garden. And they’re certainly not expecting to find themselves in a race to save Christmas.

But if they don’t track down a missing shepherd, wise man, donkey and the actual Mary and Joseph, who’ve all crash-landed in Chipping Bottom, not only will Christmas cease to exist, but they will too.

Operation Nativity is on.

Jenny Pearson’s debut children’s novel The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates (Usborne) was published in 2020. It was subject to a major 8-way auction and has already been sold in 20 languages. It has been shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book of the Year 2020, Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Bradford Boase, the UKLA Book awards and the Lollies. It was also Waterstones Book of the Month, The Times Book of the Year and Sunday Times Book of the Week.  It’s a super funny, heart-warming adventure of three boys, one summer holiday, and a few miracles along the way. Her second book – The Incredible Record Smashers – was released in 2021. Jenny is represented by Sam Copeland at RCW Literary Agency.

How To Build A Boat

*Longlisted for The Booker Prize 2023*

From the prize-winning author of AS YOU WERE, HOW TO BUILD A BOAT is the story of how one boy and his mission transforms the lives of his teachers and brings together a community. It was published by Vintage in April 2023.

Jamie O’Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe. At age 13 there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind these things are intimately linked. And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him.

Elaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, andwon the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise,and her short story Sojourn was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Feeney lectures at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and is represented for books by Peter Straus at RCW Literary Agency.

 

The Beauty Case

THE BEAUTY CASE is a dark, elegant, genre-defying adult debut by Karen Ball, set in the glamorously debauched 1950s Hollywood. The rights were acquired by Viking in a 6-figure pre-empt and will be published in Summer 2024. You can read the Bookseller announcement here.

THE BEAUTY CASE follows Loretta, a quick-witted and plucky young woman who harbours a dubious past and is trying to succeed as a make-up artist in the misogyny-steeped world of 1950s Hollywood. It merges the escapism in the luxe debauchery of the Hollywood setting with a darker undercurrent of righteous justice.

A former Bookseller Rising Star with her publishing consultancy Speckled Pen, THE BEAUTY CASE is Ball’s debut adult novel having written more than 25 children’s books. She is represented by Katie Greenstreet at Paper Literary Agency.