category: Fiction

Five Survive

FIVE SURVIVE is a US-based YA thriller set in real-time, as 6 friends travel across the states in an RV for Spring Break. And yes, you guessed it … only five survive. Have you been watching YELLOWJACKETS? It will be published in US by Delacorte Press in November 2022; UK rights are with Farshore at Harper Collins, with a publication date to be announced soon.

FIVE SURVIVE begins at 10:00 p.m. It follows a group of six friends as they travel across the states in an RV for Spring Break. But when one of their tires blows out on a remote, dirt road, the group soon realize that there is a sniper out there in the dark, shooting at them. They are trapped. A game of cat-and-mouse plays out across eight hours as the group desperately tries to escape, and to figure out which one of them is the target. Buried secrets are forced to light in the cramped, claustrophobic setting of the RV, and tensions within the group will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. 

Holly Jackson’s first novel, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, has become the UK’s bestselling YA and children’s debut of 2019 and is a #1 New York Times bestseller. It has won the National Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year in 2020, Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year, longlisted for the Branford Boase, and was a Waterstones Paperback of the Year. It was an Observer Book of the Year and WH Smith Thumping Good Read. It was published in the UK and in the US and has been translated in many other languages around the world. An adaptation has recently been green-lit and is being produced by Moonage Pictures. Holly is represented by Sam Copeland at RCW Literary Agency.

Stepping Up

Stepping Up is the first fiction novel by Sunday Times bestselling author of The Unmumsy Mum, Sarah Turner. It follows the story of flighty Beth, who finds herself guardian to her teenage niece and toddler nephew after a family tragedy. It was scooped up by Transworld as a ‘major debut’ in a six-figure, two-book deal.

He’s quit more jobs and relationships than she can remember and she still sleeps in her childhood bedroom. It’s not that she hasn’t tried to grow up, it’s just that so far, the only commitment she’s held down is Friday drinks at the village pub.

Then, in the space of a morning, her world changes.

An unspeakable tragedy turns Beth’s life upside down, and she finds herself guardian to her teenage niece and toddler nephew, catapulted into an unfamiliar world of bedtime stories, parents’ evenings and cuddly elephants. Having never been responsible for anyone – or anything – it’s not long before she feels seriously out of her depth.

What if she’s simply not up to the job?

With a little help from her best friend Jory (purely platonic, of course …) and her lovely, lonely next-door neighbour, Albert, Beth is determined that this time she’s not giving up. It’s time to step up. This is a story about digging deep for strength you never knew you had and finding magic in things that were there all along.

Sarah Turner lives in Devon with her husband and their three boys. She started writing as The Unmumsy Mum in 2013, vowing to document her ‘warts and all’ account of parenting. Having previously written purely as a hobby, the success of her blog page and subsequent Facebook page prompted Sarah to consider writing more professionally. When not wrestling three small people (or blogging about them), Sarah’s guilty pleasures are reality TV shows and endless cups of tea, usually drunk tepid following interruptions from her children. You can follow Sarah’s everyday parenting rambles on Twitter.

Sarah is represented by Hannah Ferguson at Hardman & Swainson, and Stepping Up was published by Transworld on 17th March 2022.

Briefly, A Delicious Life

Briefly, A Delicious Life tells the story of Frederic Chopin, George Sand and a mischievous teenage ghost Blanca. It is a novel about convention and breaking convention, about love – secret, forbidden, unrequited, about art and creativity, men and women and the violence they mete out to one another. You can read more about this fascinating title in the bookseller here.

In 1838 Frédéric Chopin, George Sand and her children travel to a monastery in Mallorca. They are there to create and to convalesce, to live a simple life after the wildness of their Paris days.

Witness to this tumultuous arrival is Blanca, the ghost of a teenage girl who has been at the monastery for over three hundred years. Blanca’s was a life cut short and she is outraged. Having lived in a world full, according to her mother, of ‘beautiful men’, she has found that in death it is the women she falls for, their beauty she cannot turn away from, and it is the women and girls who, over her centuries in the village and at the monastery, she has sought to protect from the attentions of men with what little power she has. And then George Sand arrives, this beautiful woman in a man’s clothes, and Blanca is in love.

But the rest of the village is suspicious of the newcomers, and as winter sets in, as George tries to keep her family and herself from falling apart, as Chopin writes prelude after prelude in despair on his tuneless piano, their stay looks likely to end in disaster . . .

Nell Stevens lives in London, where she lectures in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths University. She has a PhD in Victorian literature from King’s College London, and an MFA in Fiction from Boston University. Her debut book Bleaker House was published in 2017 by Picador. It is part memoir, part travelogue and part story collection, exploring the narrow spaces between real life and fiction. Nell is represented by Rebecca Carter at Janklow and Nesbitt, and Briefly, A Delicious Life will be published by Picador in June 2022.

Bite Risk

*This title is currently under option*.

Reminiscent of An American Werewolf in London and Stranger Things, BITE RISK is a slick thrill ride in a fascinatingly contained setting – with a pacy, filmic plot and loveable central characters. We already have strong interest in this title, which will be published in June 2023.  Sophie is planning more books set in the world of BITE RISK.

Children all over the world know the routine on a full moon: do your homework, tidy your room, check your perimeter traps, put your parents in their cages. No biggie – it’s the way things have been for more than twenty years. Life goes on. It’s normal. Boring, in fact. 

Thirteen-year-old Sel lives with his mum in the isolated community of Timorglade, sheltered from the worst of the world’s problems by sheer remoteness. For him, Confinement nights mean freedom – roaming the streets with his friends on their bikes, tranquillizer guns slung casually over their shoulders in case of emergencies that never happen. But this quiet life begins to unravel. Birds fall from the sky, ordinary incidents take on a sinister tone and, most alarmingly, security measures fall apart, leading to the unthinkable: escapes. It seems there’s more to their little town than they thought. As Sel and his friends try to figure out exactly why things are the way they are in Timorglade, they are frustrated at every turn – almost as though their every move is known, and being manipulated. When a tragedy occurs, it’s clear that the truth is being covered up.

Someone is lying to them. But it can’t be everyone, can it?

Sophie grew up in Chelmsford, Essex. She failed the 11+, had a weekend job at a boarding kennels where she suffered workplace bullying from a goat, and nurtured a dream to have a career she could do in her pyjamas. She worked at two London publishers before finally achieving her ambition by going freelance in 2003. Sophie lives on the edge of south-east London with her family and is author of The Orphans of St Halibut’s and Pamela’s Revenge, both illustrated by David Tazzyman.

Sophie is represented by Kate Shaw at The Shaw Agency. Bite Risk will be published by Simon & Schuster in June 2023.

The Raptures

THE RAPTURES explores how tragedy can unite a small community – and tear it apart – with the extraordinary resilience of a young girl at its heart.

It is late June in Ballylack. Hannah Adger anticipates eight long weeks’ reprieve from school, but when her classmate Ross succumbs to a violent and mysterious illness, it marks the beginning of a summer like no other. As others fall ill, questions about what – or who – is responsible pitch the village into conflict and fearful disarray. Hannah is haunted by guilt as she remains healthy while her friends are struck down. Isolated and afraid, she prays for help. Elsewhere in the village, tempers simmer, panic escalates and long-buried secrets threaten to emerge.

As the world crumbles around her, she must find the courage to be different in a place where conforming feels like the only option available.

Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in East Belfast. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Price for Literary for Ireland in 2019, and her short stories have been shortlisted for the Sean O’Faolain Short Story Prize, the BBC National Short Story Prize, An Post Irish Short Story of the Year Award, and in 2016 won the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize. The Fire Starters is in development with Element Pictures. The Raptures is her third novel and was published by Doubleday in January 2022. Jan is represented by Kate Johnson at Wolf Literary Services.

*Currently under option*

The Leviathan

The Leviathan is a stunning historical mystery with a supernatural twist, reminiscent of The Essex Serpent, with unforgettable settings and characters.

In 1703, in an isolated farmhouse far from the sea, old soldier Thomas Treadwater protects a secret: a nameless woman, locked in an endless sleep. But as the storm of the century rises, his captive wakes, and he must make an impossible choice… But who is she? And why has he imprisoned her? The answers lie in a Norfolk hamlet in the war-torn winter of 1643. Thomas returns from battle to discover his sister Esther harbouring a tale of witches and seduction in the servants’ hall. Craving only peace, he doubts her story, but when death strikes close to home, with his family’s reputation compromised, he delves further into the mystery, only to find himself facing an unimaginable enemy, and the end of the world he has known.

Richly researched, incredibly atmospheric, and deliciously unsettling, The Leviathan is set in England during a time of political and religious turbulence. It is a tale of family and loyalty, superstition and sacrifice, but most of all it is a spellbinding mystery and a story of impossible things.

Rosie Andrews was born and grew up in Liverpool, as the third of twelve children. She studied History at Cambridge before becoming an English teacher. She lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and daughter. The Leviathan was published on 3rd February by Raven Books, and Rosie is represented by Sam Copeland at RCW Literary Agency.

Ajay and the Mumbai Sun

Winner of the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition, Ajay and the Mumbai Sun is a funny, optimistic and resourceful modern story centring on children – but with fantastic adult characters too. It is reminiscent of Slumdog Millionaire and Emil and the Detectives, and masterfully tackles tough topics such as social justice and truth in journalism, with a lightness of touch.

Abandoned on the Mumbai railways, Ajay has grown up with nothing but a burning wish to be a journalist. Finding an abandoned printing press, he and his friends Saif, Vinod, Yasmin and Jai create their own newspaper: The Mumbai Sun. As they hunt down stories for their paper, the children uncover corruption, fight for justice and battle to save their slum from bulldozers. But against some of the most powerful forces in the city, can Ajay and his friends really succeed in bringing the truth to light? Not to mention win the most important cricket match ever…

Varsha loves books that blend humour and story and has always wanted to be a writer. She has had non-fiction articles published in Legal Week, Legal Week Global, the on-line edition of economia, the on-line edition of Harper’s Bazaar, and the Times Education Supplement. A former Solicitor, she is now an English Language and Literature teacher. She has also taught English as a foreign language in Japan and Canada, and often draws on her travels in her writing. Varsha is represented by Barry Cunningham at Chicken House Books, and Ajay and the Mumbai Sun will be published by Chicken House on 7th April 2022.

Ava in Codeland

Ava is fun, informative and empowering with endless potential for a long running series.

A little girl must use her coding skills to save her video-game home in Ava in Code Land, an adorable debut picture book by Jess Hitchman and Gavin Cullen, illustrated by Liere Martin.

Ava thinks living in a video game is pretty cool. She and her cat, Pixels, spend their days riding breakfast rollercoasters and heading to underwater discos. And if something isn’t exactly perfect, Ava can reprogram the world to be just the way she likes it.

But then the game’s villain, Max Hacksalot, comes along on his magical pirate unicorn and breaks all of Ava’s code. When Max manages to send them all to the Game Over screen, it’s up to Ava and her coding skills to save the day!

Gavin is a BAFTA nominated screenwriter and Jess worked at BBC Children’s. They’re represented on the publishing side of things by Gemma Cooper at The Bent Agency.

Lies We Sing To The Sea

*This title is currently under option*.

Lies We Sing to the Sea is a sapphic, feminist reimagining of The Odyssey, in which a failed oracle and a vengeful immortal must break the curse on their kingdom by killing its prince.

In the cursed kingdom of Ithaca, each summer brings the hanging of twelve maidens, a tithe to the vengeful Poseidon.

When Leto is sacrificed, she awakens on the shore of a long-forgotten island, home to the immortal Melantho. Eternally bound to guide the girls that the sea gives back, Melantho tells Leto that there is only one way to break Ithaca’s curse: kill the prince before the winter solstice.

Together, Leto and Melantho escape the island and infiltrate the palace, assuming the guise of an Athenian princess and her handmaid. To their dismay, the last son of Ithaca – Prince Mathias – is no monster; he is guilt-ridden by his role in overseeing the yearly executions, grieving the loss of his beloved sister, and searching for his own way to end Ithaca’s curse.
As Leto becomes closer to Melantho and Mathias, she must unravel Ithaca’s terrible history – a history that binds the three of them together – before the sea claims them all.

A reclamation of a story from thousands of years ago, LIES WE SING TO THE SEA is about fate, about grief and sacrifice, and the power we can find within.

Sarah Underwood grew up in Devon, England. She obtained her MEng in Computational Bioengineering at Imperial College, London, and is now studying for her MPhil in Population Health Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Sarah is currently working on a second novel called THE LOVELY GRAVE OF KITTY JAY, based on the folklore of Dartmoor. Sarah is represented by Catherine Cho at Paper Literary. Lies We Sing To The Sea will be published March 2023.

*Currently under option*

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers

This title is currently under option.

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr is a witty and gloriously uplifting debut, reminiscent of The Thursday Murder Club, with an ensemble cast of eccentric puzzlemakers and a young protagonist who inhabits their spirit. We think there are some truly fantastic casting opportunities here. It wassnapped up by Orion in the UK in a major two-book deal after an 8-way auction, and in a major two book deal in US with Anchor Books/Random House – with pre-emptive deals in several countries.

Clayton Stumper is an enigma. He’s twenty-four years old, but he dresses like your grandad and drinks sherry like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the front steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of enigmatologists and finds himself among the last survivors of a fading institution. When Clayton’s best friend – the esteemed crossword compiler Pippa Allsbrook – passes away, she bestows her final puzzle to him. It promises to reveal the mystery of his parentage and prepare him for life beyond the walls of the commune.

But as Clay begins to unpick the clues, he uncovers something even the Fellowship have never been able to solve. It’s a secret that will reshape his future for good…

Samuel studied at Westminster Film School and now works as a freelance TV producer, developing and creating popular-factual shows including the BAFTA-nominated Secret Life of 4-Year-Olds. A documentary he shot inside a retirement village when he was eighteen-years-old launched his career in television and inspired this novel. Samuel’s writing was shortlisted for Penguin’s WriteNow scheme and in 2021 he graduated from the Faber Academy. In his spare time he volunteers for elderly charities Age UK and Re-Engage. He lives in London with his partner Tom and their cat Muriel. THE FELLOWSHIP OF PUZZLEMAKERS is his debut novel. He has always been old at heart.