Henry Jeffreys on wine and class to Atlantic

Clare Drysdale, Group Associate Publisher of Atlantic Books, has bought World English language rights to a new book by Henry Jeffreys from Philip Gwyn Jones at Greyhound Literary. The provisionally titled Sloshed: The Story of Wine and Class from Petronius to Partridge will be published in hardback, audio and ebook in October 2027 on the Allen & Unwin UK imprint. Atlantic has also acquired the rights to Jeffreys’ award-winning Empire of Booze following the collapse of Unbound and will republish in paperback in April 2026.

Henry Jeffreys worked in the wine trade and in book publishing before becoming a writer. He was Fortnum & Mason Drink Writer of the Year in 2022 and is the author of four books, including Vines in a Cold Climate, which was shortlisted for the James Beard awards, Guild of Food Writers Awards, 67 Pall Mall wine writing awards and won the Fortnum & Mason Drink Book of the Year 2024. Along with Tom Parker Bowles he hosts the ‘Intoxicating History’ podcast.

Wine is the perfect prism through which to understand class, social mores, politics and culture. In this entertaining and colourful history, Henry Jeffreys picks ten epochs, ranging from the ancient world and the Bacchus-worshiping antics of Mark Antony to present day debates over natural wines, and examines the role wine played in each society.

Henry Jeffreys says,

‘I am delighted to be working with Atlantic again as they did such a magnificent job with my last book, Vines in a Cold Climate. This new book is on a subject that has long fascinated me, the meeting of wine and class.’

Philip Gwyn Jones says,

‘All corks popped when the reunion of Henry Jeffreys with Atlantic was agreed. Atlantic did such a good job with Henry’s prize-winning book on English wine that it was the right and good thing to return to the vineyard with them for another juicy harvest in the shape of Henry’s next book. I am especially delighted that Henry shall be working with Clare Drysdale, whose publishing palate is so peerlessly subtle and acute.’

Clare Drysdale, Group Associate Publisher of Atlantic Books, says,

‘Henry Jeffreys is incapable of writing a dull sentence. He’s masterful at educating his readers while never making it feel like homework. Wine and class promise to be a delicious pairing.’

Love, Expanded goes to Atlantic Books

Erika Koljonen, Non-Fiction Editor at Atlantic Books, has bought World Rights in Wren Burke’s Love Expanded: How Asexuals and Aromantics and Redefining Love, Life and Family from Judith Murray at Greene & Heaton. Love Expanded will be published in hardback, eBook and audio on 3^rd June 2025.

 

What if romantic love wasn’t the only kind we prioritised? What would happen if we put the same emphasis on platonic love? How would we understand and relate to each other? How would we change?

In this quietly radical book, Wren Burke makes a case for breaking out of our outdated social and cultural conventions that tell us romance alone will bring us true happiness. By shifting our focus to love all its manifestations, Love Expanded offers us a way through the loneliness epidemic: one that prioritises community and companionship over the search for ‘the one’.

This illuminating book is for anyone who wants deeper, more authentic connections; for those who crave partnership but not romance; for single people in a world which benefits couples. It offers us new languages for consent that take apart old-fashioned scripts in favour of better, clearer communication, and different approaches to dating that focus less on seeking instant attraction and more on building friendships.

You don’t need a romantic partner to be complete; you’re already whole.

 

Wren Burke grew up in a quiet corner of Hertfordshire, where they spent a lot of time wondering why everyone else was so interested in the whole ‘dating’ thing. Without much of a local queer community, they turned to the internet to find their people, and to stories for their representation.

They spend their free time birdwatching, playing video and tabletop games, and over-analysing fictional characters in everything from Shakespeare to science fiction. Love Expanded is their first book.

 

Wren Burke says,

‘Most people don’t know what asexuality and aromanticism are, let alone the pressure we face living in a romance-obsessed, sex-obsessed society. There are some incredible books explaining our identities out there, but I’ve yet to see anything that really explored how asexual and aromantic people live, love and create families outside the norm… or how everyone can fight back against the message that only a romantic partner will make them happy. That’s why Love Expanded is so important: it shows how much everyone is burdened by our fixation with romance and sex, and how much bolder and freer we could all be. As a closeted teen, I could never have imagined I’d one day see my perspective on the world turned into a book. It’s been incredible to have Atlantic supporting me in this journey, giving a voice to a community that’s so used to being ignored and unheard.’

 

Erika Koljonen says,

‘From the moment this landed in my inbox I knew this was an important, polemical book to publish. The asexual and aromantic communities are, unfortunately, still marginalised and misunderstood, and as Wren so eloquently shows in Love Expanded, these are issues that impact all of us. I’m thrilled they’ve chosen Atlantic and Allen & Unwin UK as the home for their first book!’

 

Judith Murray says,

‘Wren Burke’s thoughtful and thought-provoking book comes at a time in our turbulent world when tolerance and diversity and inclusion are under attack, just when we need such values most. In this book, they show us that humanity *is* diverse and that we are all the better and richer in every way by understanding, including and celebrating that diversity in ourselves and in the other human beings with whom we share our world. Wren also reminds us how liberating it is for all of us to realise the joyous potential of other forms of love, especially friendship – Love Expanded indeed!’

Most nominations of any Independent Alliance publisher go to Atlantic

Atlantic epitomised the ability of independents to spot gaps and take risks in literary publishing. Martin MacInnes’ In Ascension and Colin Walsh’s Kala were examples of its passionate author support. It hit the TikTok jackpot too, getting 300,000 sales out of a six year-old backlist title, The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, with a brilliant reissue campaign. Total TCM sales rose 15%.

In addition, there were two further shortlistings for individuals within the company.

James Roxburgh, publishing director for Atlantic Fiction, has been shortlisted for Editor of the Year:

Publishing director James Roxburgh has tripled Atlantic Fiction’s sales in five years, thanks to astute acquisitions on modest advances. Several of his long-term authors came good in 2024, including Martin MacInnes with In Ascension, which is nearing six-figure sales, while Colin Walsh’s Kala was a smash debut. Roxburgh has also pioneered Atlantic’s rights-based commissioning project Workshop.

Creative Director Felice McKeown was also shortlisted for Marketing Strategy of the Year:

Felice McKeown’s campaign for The Courage To Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga shows how marketing can transform old as well as new titles. The book had gone viral on TikTok, but with complex content and no author support, there was no guarantee of big sales. Superb collaboration with influencers and TikTok Shop and data-driven follow-up throughout 2024 made sure it did.

The winners will be announced at JW Marriott Grosvenor House, London on 12th May 2025.

The Independent Publishing Awards

The Empathy Fix to Allen & Unwin UK

Editor Erika Koljonen at Atlantic Books has bought World Rights in The Empathy Fix: Why poverty persists and how to change it by Dr Keetie Roelen from Ciara Finan at Curtis Brown. The Empathy Fix will be published in demy hardback, ebook and audio on 30th January 2025 on the Allen & Unwin UK imprint.

 

Poverty is bad for everyone: viewed as something shameful, it reduces brainpower and hampers positive action, as well as increasing crime, burdening healthcare systems and raising taxpayers’ bills. At a time of growing inequality, increased socioeconomic uncertainty and unacceptable levels of hardship, and with millions around the world struggling to make ends meet, tackling poverty has never been more urgent. But why is it so difficult to fix? The deeply engrained prejudice and punitive policies lead to vicious cycles of deprivation, and while positive psychology that emphasises personal strengths can be empowering, it also feeds toxic narratives of failure and defeat. The flipside of taking credit for individual success is that the inability to achieve it is attributed to personal shortcomings.

 

The Empathy Fix exposes the realities of poverty and reveals why policies don’t work. It shows what is needed to radically rethink current efforts to tackle poverty: empathy.

 

Dr Keetie Roelen is a Senior Research Fellow and Co-Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Development at The Open University, UK. She has been working in the field of poverty, social policy, and international development for nearly two decades and is the founder and host of the Poverty Unpacked podcast, a platform for exploring the hidden sides of poverty.

 

Her work has featured in The Guardian and BBC World Service. She has spoken about how to address poverty to multiple audiences, ranging from government ministers and MPs to students and activists.

 

Dr Keetie Roelen says,

‘In The Empathy Fix, I reveal how our attitudes and approaches to poverty often make things worse rather than help people live better lives. From labelling low-income individuals as lazy and inept, making poor families pay more for essentials and physically brandishing children unable to pay their school lunches, this book exposes the hidden and ugly truths of how we fail those in hardship around the world. But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Positive change is possible, and The Empathy Fix offers practical advice for how we can all tap into our innate ability to empathise and take action.’

 

Erika Koljonen says,

‘I’m so excited and proud to be publishing this vital and solution-driven book on my list. Keetie draws from her wealth of expertise and the latest research to show the realities of poverty on a truly global scale. Her in-depth discussion and analysis offers both individual readers and policymakers realistic and tangible solutions, as well as hope for the future.’

Everything/Nothing/Someone to Allen & Unwin UK

Erika Koljonen, Editor at Allen & Unwin UK, has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, in Alice Carrière’s literary memoir from Stephen Morrison at Susanna Lea Associates. Originally published in the US in August 2023 by Spiegel & Grau, Allen & Unwin UK will publish in demy trade paperback, eBook and audio on 29th February 2024. The memoir was named Publishers Weekly and Kirkus’s Best Nonfiction of 2023, as well as being picked for Jennette McCurdy’s book club.

Alice Carrière is a graduate of Columbia University. This is her first book. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and Amagansett, New York.

 

Everything/Nothing/Someone is a literary coming-of-age tale in the tradition of Girl, Interrupted and The Bell Jar. In it, Alice Carrière tells the story of her ostentatious, lavish, bohemian but ultimately neglectful childhood in Greenwich Village as the daughter of a remote mother, the renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett, and a charismatic father, European actor Mathieu Carrière. Her days are a mixture of privilege, neglect, loneliness, and danger – a child living in an adult’s world, with little-to-no enforcement of boundaries or supervision. In adolescence, Alice begins to lose her grasp on reality as a dissociative disorder erases her identity and overzealous doctors medicate her further away from herself. She inhabits various roles: as a patient in expensive psychiatric hospitals, a denizen of the downtown New York music scene, the ingenue in destructive encounters with older men – ricocheting from experience to experience until a medication-induced psychosis brings these personas crashing down.

 

Eventually, Alice manages to untangle the stories told to her by her parents, the American psychiatric complex, and her own broken mind to craft a unique and mesmerizing narrative of emergence and, finally, cure. She finds purpose in caring for her mother as she descends into dementia, in a love affair with a recovering addict who steadies her, in confronting her father whose words and actions splintered her, and in finding her voice as a writer.

 

Alice Carrière says,

‘I am thrilled that my memoir, Everything/Nothing/Someone, will be published by Atlantic Books. I am so moved by their enthusiasm for it and I’m eager to get it in the hands of readers in the UK.’

 

Erika Koljonen says,

‘I was blown away by the strength of Alice’s writing – it sucks the reader in and stays with you long after you’ve finished reading. She’s a phenomenal talent, balancing an evocative darkness with heart-wrenching humanity. This already feels like a classic of the genre – I see it finding new readers for years to come. I’m so excited to be publishing this incredible memoir in the UK.’

Booker-shortlisted author Neel Mukherjee follows long-time editor Poppy Hampson to Atlantic

Atlantic Publishing Director Poppy Hampson has acquired UK + Commonwealth rights, including India, in two new novels from Neel Mukherjee, from Sarah Chalfant at The Wylie Agency. The first novel, Choice, will be published in spring 2024 on the Atlantic Fiction list.

Neel Mukherjee won the Writers Guild of Great Britain Award for best fiction in 2010 for his debut novel A Life Apart. His second novel, The Lives of Others, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Costa Novel Award, and won the Encore Award. His most recent novel, A State of Freedom, was a New York Times ‘100 Notable Books of the Year’ and heralded as ‘Stunning … a marvel of a book, shocking and beautiful, and it proves that Mukherjee is one of the most original and talented authors working today’ (NPR).

Choice is a bold and dramatic novel that asks the reader to consider: should we be driven by moral values or market values? And how will the choices we make affect our work, our relationships and our place in the world? In three ingeniously linked but distinct narratives, we meet a publisher who is at war with his industry and himself; an academic who exchanges one story for another, after an accident that brings a stranger into her life; and a family in rural India whose lives are destroyed by a gift. Together these stories, each of which has devastating unintended consequences, form a breath-taking exploration of freedom, responsibility and ethics.   They reappraise assumptions about race, appropriation and the economy of our cultural world.  Choice is a masterful enquiry into how we should live our lives, and how we should tell them.

Poppy Hampson says,

‘Neel Mukherjee is an extraordinary and fearless writer. He forces us to ask hard questions of his characters and then ourselves, and this novel will grip you, shake you, and leave you seeing the world anew. I love his bold story-telling, his formal inquisitiveness, and his dark humour. I’m delighted that he’ll be joining us at Atlantic.’

Image copyright: Nick Tucker

Corvus acquires Amy Chua’s fiction debut The Golden Gate

Corvus Publishing Director Sarah Hodgson has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in Amy Chua’s The Golden Gate from Julian Alexander at The Soho Agency, on behalf of Theresa Park at Park & Fine. North American rights went to Kelley Ragland at Minotaur Books, part of the St Martin’s Press Publishing Group. The Golden Gate will be published in hardback and eBook on 21^st September with a paperback to follow in the summer of 2024.

 

Amy Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She is an internationally bestselling author of several non-fiction titles, including her 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which was a runaway international bestseller that has been translated into over 30 languages. Chua graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and cum laude from Harvard Law School. After practicing on Wall Street for a few years, she joined the Yale Law School faculty in 2001. The Golden Gate is her fiction debut.

 

The Golden Gate takes place in Berkeley in 1944 and follows Homicide Detective Al Sullivan (a mixed race former army officer who is still reckoning with his own history) who has just left the Claremont Hotel bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs.

 

This is not the first suspicious death at the Claremont: as Sullivan investigates the case, he keeps finding connections to the tragic death of a seven-year-old girl, a member of the prominent and wealthy Bainbridge family. As the case leads Sullivan back to the three remaining (and mesmerizing) Bainbridge heiresses, he’s determined not to let anything—not the powerful influence of the Bainbridge matriarch, not the political aspirations of Berkeley’s DA, not the interests of China’s first lady—distract him from the truth.

 

Amy Chua says,

‘Growing up in a small town called El Cerrito, across from the bay from glamorous San Francisco, I often wondered what life was life for the affluent people in the big city, living in the shadow of that famous bridge. As the daughter of immigrants who was often teased about my Chinese accent, slanty eyes, and funny clothes, I was acutely conscious of the gap between insiders and outsiders, haves and have-nots, in a state shaped by constant waves of migration and the lure of a better life. I wove my story around actual events, like the Japanese American internment, labour unrest in the shipyards where America’s battleships were built, and the christening of the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as colourful real-life characters like Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and forensic pioneer August Vollmer of the Berkeley Police Department. As a California native, exploring some of the darker episodes of the Golden State’s history was a revelation and also a window into some of the conflicts that live on in our turbulent era.’

 

Sarah Hodgson says,

‘It’s a privilege and a pleasure to welcome Amy Chua to the Corvus list with The Golden Gate. She has given us an elegantly noir-tinged, twisting tale that reimagines the classic detective novel with a contemporary understanding of the complex historical narratives that converge in 1940s California. It’s also a brilliantly plot-driven and hugely entertaining read that I’m thrilled to share with readers this autumn.’

Lightborne – a transfixing debut historical novel from Atlantic

Karen Duffy, Head of Campaigns & Associate Publisher at Atlantic Books, has acquired UK & Commonwealth volume, serial and audio rights plus translation rights in Hesse Phillips’ Lightborne from Brian Langan of Storyline Literary Agency. It will be published Spring 2024. Langan retains North American and broadcasting rights.

Joseph O’Connor is an early fan, calling the novel

‘a wonderfully vivid and edgy piece of storytelling, the kind of brilliant writing that rescues historical fiction from the museum’.

In teeming Elizabethan London, Kit Marlowe tumbles towards an early and violent death. In Marlowe’s world, to question the authority of the Queen, or her church, is to risk torture and public execution. Those who dare to live and love freely, or put their unorthodox thoughts on stage in the form of vicious, spiked poetry, as Marlowe does, walk with peril. Marlowe’s downfall, from celebrated playwright, friend of Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd, to outcast fugitive, hunted by scheming spies such as the diabolical Robin Poley, is swift and brutal. Ultimately, his last hope is the other beating heart of this story, Marlowe’s biggest fan turned bodyguard turned lover turned murderer, the unforgettable Ingram Frizer. Through Frizer and Marlowe, Lightborne tells a story of love and betrayal that feels modern in so many ways, making for an exceptional debut novel.

Hesse Phillips (she/they) grew up in rural Pennsylvania and now lives in Spain. They were a graduate of Grub Street Boston’s acclaimed Novel Incubator programme and have had their poetry and fiction appear in various journals and magazines, and were longlisted for the Bridport Prize in Short Fiction in 2019. Lightborne was a winner of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair in 2022. Their website is www.hessephillips.com

Hesse Phillips says:

‘Lightborne is a labour of love born out of years of research, writing and rewrites, and I’m immensely honoured that it’s found a champion in my agent Brian Langan, and now a home at Atlantic Books. Karen and her team have the kind of vision and passion for this story that every writer dreams about – especially a debut author like myself. I couldn’t have hoped for a better group of people to bring Kit Marlowe and his world to life.’

Karen Duffy says:

‘He’s loud, he’s lofty, he’s queer: he stands out in a crowd whether he means to or not. But in the bustling theatres and inns of the city he loves, as his former bedmates and fellow spies shrink away to protect themselves, Marlowe finds relief, furtive love and a last ally in the unlikely shape of the anxious, vulnerable, confused Frizer. Their short, torrid time together and the forces that conspire to bring it to an end are grippingly animated by Hesse Phillips in this roaring, racing drama of a novel, which all of us at Atlantic believe is sure to be regarded as one of the great debuts of its year. I am so proud and happy we are publishing it.’

Atlantic acquires Bryan Washington’s new novel Family Meal

Atlantic Fiction Publishing Director James Roxburgh has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, in Bryan Washington’s new novel from Danielle Bukowski at Sterling Lord Literistic. Family Meal will be published in hardback and trade paperback in October 2023, followed by a paperback in 2024.

From the bestselling, Dylan Thomas Prize-winning author of Memorial and Lot, a novel about two young men who grew up together, fell away from each other, and then collide again after a crisis…

Growing up, TJ was Cam’s boy next door. When Cam needed a home, TJ’s parents took him in. Their family bakery became Cam’s safe place… until he left. Years later, Cam’s world is falling apart. The love of his life is dead and Cam’s not sure he’s ready to let go of him, but when he has a chance to return to his home town he takes it. Back in the same place as TJ, they circle each other warily, TJ unsure how to navigate Cam – utterly cool, completely devastated and self-destructive – crashing back into his world.

Bryan Washington is a writer from Houston. His fiction and essays have appeared in, among other publications, The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, the BBC, Vulture and the Paris Review. He’s also a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 winner, the recipient of an Ernest J. Gaines Award, a PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize finalist, a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist, the recipient of an O. Henry Award and the winner of the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize.

James Roxburgh, Publisher for Atlantic Fiction, says,

‘This is such a beautiful novel – tough, honest, funny, sensual, traumatic, generous. It has a basic emotional philosophy of mutual accountability, that taking care of ourselves is taking care of the people we love, and taking care of the people we love is taking care of ourselves. It’s also brilliant on male friendship, on platonic love, on food and sex and on ghosts, and there’s a moment of stillness towards the end that moved me so much that my bones felt soft, and moved one of our publicity directors so much that a woman on the train had to ask if she was okay. Bryan Washington is a major writer, and this is very much a major work.’

Grove Press nets Verghese’s ‘humbling’ novel

Grove Press has netted a new novel from Abraham Verghese, set in south India, named The Covenant of Water.

Peter Blackstock, publisher, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Mary Evans at Mary Evans Inc. The novel will be published on 18th May 2023.

Spanning 77 years, from 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in south India that suffers from a “peculiar affliction”: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning. The publisher continued: “The story opens with a 12-year-old girl, grieving the death of her father, who is sent by boat to meet her 40-year-old husband for the first time at their wedding. From this poignant beginning a gripping and unexpected family story unfolds, an exploration of love and marriage, struggle through hardship, and a hymn to progress in medicine and human understanding.”

Verghese’s novel blends his “deep knowledge of and enthusiasm for the medical world with his writing genius, resulting in a bold, sweeping story that reads like a classic Russian novel”.

Blackstock commented:

“The Covenant of Water is epic but with a page-turning momentum, and it conjures a whole world which feels absolutely alive. Abraham tells much of the story of India’s path to modernity through a single family living in Kerala from 1900 to the 1970s, moving through joy, tragedy, love and marriage as the country around them shifts and turns. It’s a beautiful, humbling book about family lineage and connection, and also about the unexpected ways mankind makes progress. Ultimately, it’s a book about human persistence in difficult times – and although it’s historical in its scope it feels so pertinent to all we’re going through today.”

Verghese added:

“I’m thrilled that Grove Press UK will publish The Covenant of Water for readers in the UK and in Commonwealth countries, especially because much of the story takes place in the UK as well as in south India, in places where I spent my formative years as a child and did my medical training. As a reader and writer, the eventful decades between 1900 to 1970 have always fascinated me and I hope this tale set in that period resonates for readers.”