category: Recently Optioned

*Currently under option*

Jamie Tulloch is a successful exec at a top tech company, a long way from the tough upbringing that drove him to rise so far and so quickly.

But he has a secret…since the age of 23, he’s had a helping hand from the Legend Programme, a secret intelligence effort to prepare impenetrable backstories for undercover agents. Real people, living real lives, willing to hand over their identities for a few weeks in return for a helping hand with plum jobs, influence and access.

When his tap on the shoulder finally comes, it’s swiftly followed by the thud of a body. Arriving at a French airport ready to hand over his identity, Jamie finds his primary contact dead, the agent who’s supposed to step into his life AWOL and his options for escape non-existent.

Pitched into a deadly mission on hostile territory, Jamie must contend with a rogue Russian general, arms dealers, elite hackers, CIA tac-ops and the discovery of a brewing plan for war. Dangerously out of his depth, he must convince his sceptical mission handler he can do the job of a trained field agent while using his own life story as convincing cover.

David is originally from Edinburgh and now lives in East Lothian, by the sea, with his wife and two cats. Sometimes he wanders along the shoreline early in the morning, muttering about spies and spaceships into his dictaphone. He harbours dreams of being a full time shoreline mutterer. For the moment though, he writes short stories and novels very early in the morning and works as a UX designer by day. He’s an enthusiastic member of Edinburgh SFF and the Codex Writers group. When he’s not writing, he can most often be found walking in the Highlands or trying to make a dent in his reading pile. David is represented for publishing by Harry Illingworth at DHH Literary Agency.

 

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 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 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.

The Film/TV Rights are currently under option.

‘I watch them because I think they need help.’

 Mercy Lake likes to fix things. To fix people. Trapped inside during daylight hours, hostage to her phobias, she uses the cover of night to watch the people in her town. And if someone needs her help, she steps in – secretly and with compassion.

When Mercy meets Louis, her lonely, unusual life is suddenly filled with excitement. Because Louis likes intervening in other people’s lives too, only he prefers a more direct – even violent – approach. As they grow closer, Mercy is enchanted but frightened by his actions. How many lines is he willing to cross? And how much is he prepared to risk?

And then there’s Nadia. Nadia knows she’s being watched, even if the police think differently. But with her own secrets to protect, she’s not going to wait around for the watcher to make their move. She’s going to stop them dead.

Sam Lloyd grew up in Hampshire, where he learned his love of storytelling. These days he lives in Surrey with his wife, three young sons and a dog that likes to howl. His first thrillers, THE MEMORY WOOD and THE RISING TIDE, were published to huge critical acclaim in 2020 and 2021. Sam Lloyd is represented by Sam Copeland at RCW Literary Agency.

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.