Joanna Lee acquires debut Death in the Air by Ram Murali at competitive auction
Joanna Lee, Editor at Atlantic Fiction, has bought UK & Commonwealth (exc. Canada) rights to Ram Murali’s debut Death in the Air from Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein on behalf of Chris Parris-Lamb at The Genert Company. Bought in a major deal at competitive auction, Death of the Air will be Atlantic Fiction’s lead debut for 2024 and will be a co-publication with Jane Palfreyman at Allen & Unwin Australia. US rights were sold to Noah Eaker at HarperCollins.
Ro Krishna has it all – rakish charm, an Oxford education, perfect hair. He’s the kind of guy who’s equally at home in London’s poshest clubs and on the squash court, with enviable wit and style to match.
When he is dramatically forced to leave a high-profile job that he loves, he decides it’s time to check in for some much-needed R&R at Samsara, a world-class spa for the global cosmopolitan elite nestled in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, where all your wishes are just a gilded notecard away.
But it’s not just heiresses, white yoga instructors, and Bollywood stars-to-be that have checked in to Samsara: Christmas is approaching, and death is on its way…
Ram Murali was born in New York, NY in 1978. After beginning his career as a lawyer in private practice in London and Paris, he worked for many years across all aspects of film and television development, production and distribution. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Columbia Law School, the Sorbonne and the University of Cambridge. Ram is a dual citizen of the US and France and currently lives in London.
Ram Murali says,
‘I’ve been devouring mystery novels since I was a kid, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be publishing one of my own one day. I couldn’t be more excited and more honoured to be working with the dream team of Harper Books in the US and Atlantic Books in the UK to bring Death in the Air into the world.’
Joanna Lee, Editor, says,
‘I loved spending time with Ro and the gang at Samsara – Death in the Air is that perfect combination of genre and politics, entwining super smart observations about colonialism, Partition, race, appropriation into a twisty, contemporary murder mystery narrative with wit, humour and style. The lush, hyper-wealthy setting of the spa, coupled with these brilliantly live, distinct characters calls to mind Crazy Rich Asians meets Knives Out, with shades of The White Lotus, too. Ram is a major talent – I’m delighted to make him my first major acquisition here at Atlantic Fiction, and I can’t wait to introduce Death in the Air to readers over here.’
Death in the Air will be published in Spring 2024.
Allen & Unwin UK to publish debut novel The Funeral Cryer
Allen & Unwin have acquired UK & Commonwealth (ex Canada) rights to The Funeral Cryer, the first novel by Wenyan Lu, a Cambridge-based writer, teacher and translator. Senior Editor Kate Ballard bought the rights from Kemi Ogunsanwo at The Good Literary Agency.
Told from the perspective of an unnamed woman in contemporary rural China, The Funeral Cryer tells the tale of a middle-aged woman who long ago accepted the realities of her life: avoided by fellow villagers because of the stigma attached to her job as a professional mourner, and under-appreciated by The Husband, whose fecklessness has pushed the couple close to the brink of break-up. But just when things couldn’t be any bleaker, The Funeral Cryer takes a leap of faith – and in so doing things start to take a surprising turn for the better . . .
The Funeral Cryer is an unforgettable depiction of one woman’s mid-life reawakening – dark, moving and wry, it’s both a stark portrait of female desire and an illuminating depiction of a ‘left-behind’ society.
Wenyan Lu is the Chinese-born-and-raised winner of the SI Leeds Literary Prize 2020. Her unpublished historical novel The Martyr’s Hymn was also longlisted for SI Leeds Literary Prize 2018 and Bridport First Novel Prize 2019. Wenyan holds a Master of Studies in Creative Writing as well as a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She lives in Cambridge.
Wenyan Lu comments: ‘I am thrilled to be publishing my debut novel The Funeral Cryer with Atlantic Books. I am grateful to my editor Kate and the team at Atlantic for their dedication and their belief in me. I would also like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to my agent Kemi for her passion in my writing and her ongoing support. As a debut author, it has always been in my dream to see my novel on the bookshelves, and I look forward to publication day in 2023.’
Kate Ballard comments: ‘I was fascinated by the idea of funeral-crying as a profession, and then immediately caught up in the narrator’s story thanks to Wenyan’s singular, striking voice on the page. I was rapt as her protagonist’s tragi-comic midlife coming-of-age tale unspooled in a bleak, moving and utterly unforgettable way to reveal a contemporary ‘left behind’ society we so rarely see depicted in fiction. This novel will have really broad appeal and I can’t wait to share The Funeral Cryer’s tale with readers far and wide when we publish in hardback next Spring.’
The Funeral Cryer will publish in hardback and e-book in May 2023 as a lead title on the Allen & Unwin imprint of Atlantic Books.
Corvus acquires Grave Expectations by Alice Bell
Corvus Publishing Director Sarah Hodgson has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excl Canada) in Alice Bell’s ghost-filled cosy crime caper Grave Expectations as part of a two-book deal from Stevie Finegan at Zeno. North American rights were sold to Anna Kaufman at PRH. Grave Expectations will be published as a Corvus lead title in May 2023 in hardback, trade paperback and ebook, and in paperback in October 2023.
Alice Bell is the deputy editor of Rock Paper Shotgun, a popular PC gaming website, and in 2019 she was named one of the 100 most influential women in the UK games industry.
She grew up in Southwest England, and after spending several years in London now lives in Cork, Ireland.
How do you solve a murder when the ghost of a 17-year-old keeps telling you you’re doing it wrong?
Claire Hendricks is a hapless 30-something true crime fan treading water in the gig economy working as a medium. When she is invited to an old university friend’s country pile to provide entertainment for a family party, her best friend Sophie tags along. In fact, Sophie rarely leaves Claire’s side, because she’s been haunting her ever since she was murdered at the age of 17.
When the pair arrive at The Cloisters, they find themselves drawn to a tragic and unrecognizable ghost, clearly an unquiet spirit who met an untimely end. Teaming up with the least unbearable members of the Wellington-Forge family – depressive ex-cop Basher and teenage reactionary Alex – Claire and Sophie determine to figure out not just whodunnit, but who they killed, why and when.
Together they must race against incompetence to find the murderer before the murderer finds them, in this funny, modern, media-literate debut mystery for the My Favourite Murder generation.
Alice Bell says,
“I’m so looking forward to waking the dead with Corvus and PRH in 2023 and beyond. To see Grave Expectations published at all is almost unbelievable, let alone getting to work with editors as smart and passionate as Sarah and Anna, who have helped bring Claire and Sophie to life (and un-life) in ways I never expected. It’s very invigorating to be so supported in my efforts to put more swearing, crying, and falling over into cosy crime.”
Sarah Hodgson, Publishing Director, Corvus, says,
“I absolutely adored Grave Expectations from the first line – it’s a murder mystery that is full of heart and humour, filled with memorable and relatable characters you can’t help but root for despite their flaws and foibles. It reads like the perfect mash-up of ‘Ghosts’ and ‘Knives Out’. I couldn’t be happier to be working with the clever, funny and hugely talented Alice Bell on this incredibly entertaining and endearing new series.”
Corvus signs ‘heart-wrenching and uplifting’ debut One Moment
Corvus Publishing Director Sarah Hodgson has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in Becky Hunter’s debut One Moment as part of a two book deal from Sarah Hornsley at Peters, Fraser + Dunlop (PFD). US rights were sold to Alex Logan at Grand Central in a significant six-figure 2-book pre-empt, German rights have gone to Droemer Knaur in a four-way auction and Romanian rights have been pre-empted by Nemira. One Moment will be published in HB, TPB and eBook in March 2023.
Becky Hunter has worked in the publishing industry for over eight years, starting her career in the PR team at Transworld. Previously at Headline, she now works freelance.
The day Scarlett dies should have been one of the most important of her life. It doesn’t feel fair that she’ll never have the chance to fulfil her dreams. And now, she’s still … here … somehow, watching the ripple effect of her death on the lives of those she loved the most.
Evie cannot contemplate her life without Scarlett, and she certainly cannot forgive Nate, the man she blames for her best friend’s death. But Nate keeps popping up when she least expects him to, catapulting Evie’s life in directions she’d never let herself imagine possible. Ways, perhaps, even those closest to her had long since given up on.
If you could go back, knowing everything that happens after, everything that happens because of that one moment in time, would you change the course of history or would you do it all again?
Becky Hunter says:
“I am so thrilled to be working with Sarah at Corvus. Her enthusiasm for the novel came through so strongly, and I could not ask for a more passionate editor – so I’m very excited for the next few years ahead. I can’t wait for readers to meet Evie, Scarlett and Nate, and the fact that they will be able to do so in the UK, US, and other countries around the world is a phenomenal thing to be able to say!”
Sarah Hodgson, Publishing Director, Corvus, says,
“One Moment takes you on a true emotional rollercoaster – it’s both heart-wrenching and uplifting, a tale of friendship and love that explores grief and sacrifice, but above all hope. I was astonished at how polished the book already was on submission, and it’s a real delight to work with the hugely talented Becky Hunter. We can’t wait for readers to fall in love with Evie and Scarlet.”
Atlantic Books acquires biography of Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald
Atlantic Books has acquired an ‘essential and unmissable’ biography of Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald by journalist and politician Shane Ross. Clare Drysdale, group associate publisher of Atlantic Books, bought World rights (including audio and translation) from Jonathan Williams Literary Agency. Mary Lou McDonald: A Republican Riddle will be published in flapped trade paperback and eBook formats on October 6th 2022.
Mary Lou McDonald is the bookies’ favourite to be Ireland’s next Taoiseach. She would be the first woman to reach the office, and the first Sinn Féin leader ever to enter government in the Republic of Ireland. But how did a quintessentially bourgeois woman end up as the leader of a political party with such a recent terrorist past? This biography explores the influences on Mary Lou’s early life and fully covers her unexpected, but hitherto unexplained, political choices. It examines her attitudes to Gerry Adams, to Sinn Féin violence and whether she is a true believer or another political opportunist. It reveals her relationship with the politicians – many emerging from the shadows – who will be part of her government if she achieves her ambition.
Shane Ross’s scrupulously fair and balanced biography illuminates McDonald’s political awakening, her relationship with the hard men of the IRA, and the evolution and future of Sinn Féin.
Shane Ross has been a stockbroker, a journalist, a politician and an author. He was Business Editor of the Sunday Independent for over sixteen years, and a member of the Seanad for 29 years before taking a Dáil seat in 2011. In 2016, he became Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, serving in the Irish government for over four years.
Shane Ross says:
‘Mary Lou McDonald, a political mystery, is an unlikely apologist for a party that was for so long the political wing of IRA terrorists. Her middle-class upbringing and privileged southern Irish background contrast sharply with her chosen political creed. I worked alongside Mary Lou in the Dail for many years. She was both brilliant and baffling, often radical and sometimes reckless, but she never took her eye off the main prize: the leadership of Sinn Féin and the ultimate goal of a united Ireland.’
Clare Drysdale, group associate publisher of Atlantic Books, says:
‘For a politician to write a biography of another politician is unusual, and for the result to be neither hagiography nor hatchet job is remarkable. Shane Ross was in the room as a fellow parliamentarian for many of the moments that made Mary Lou McDonald’s name – his unrivalled access, and Sinn Fein’s eye-catching success in Northern Ireland’s recent Assembly elections, makes this biography essential and unmissable reading.’
Corvus to publish debut Sugar, Baby
Corvus editor Sarah de Souza has won UK and Commonwealth rights, ex Canada, in Celine Saintclare’s debut Sugar, Baby. De Souza’s first acquisition for Corvus was won in a hotly contested, five-way auction from Hattie Grünewald at The Blair Partnership.
Celine Saintclare is 25 years old and lives in Buckinghamshire, and is of Caribbean and English descent. She was longlisted for the Penguin Random House Write Now scheme, and will be starting an MA at Goldsmiths in Creative and Life Writing this year.
Sugar, Baby follows Agnes, a young woman stuck in a dead-end cleaning job whose life changes when she is introduced to a new profession: sugaring. At first, it seems like the perfect escape – extravagant tasting menus, private jets to Paris and Miami, endless admirers. But it comes as a shock for her religious mother Constance, who came to the UK from St Vincent in her twenties. While Constance’s faith starts to be rattled, Agnes must ask herself how far she is willing to go to be adored…
Celine Saintclare says:
‘I’m so excited to have signed with Corvus and to be working together with Sarah de Souza on my debut novel. I love the vision Sarah and the rest of the team have for Sugar, Baby and to have found a home that shares my passion for the story. I’m also very grateful to my agent Hattie Grünewald at The Blair Partnership for her guidance and championing my work.’
Sarah de Souza says:
‘Sugar, Baby shines a light on the world of high-paid sex work through the eyes of an outsider, while exploring the interplay of beauty, race and sexuality. Celine’s unique voice makes her the perfect author to tell this story, and she does so with breathtaking vulnerability, vivid detail and unexpected humour. I can’t wait to publish her fearless debut next summer’.
Hattie Grünewald added:
‘Sugar, Baby caught my eye immediately when it arrived in submissions and it’s fantastic to have matched Celine with a publisher who shares our passion and vision. It’s sure to be the book everyone’s talking about next summer.’
Allen & Unwin UK to publish debut novel by Taunton-based writer and former teacher Elizabeth Delo
Allen & Unwin have acquired World English rights to Becoming Liz Taylor, the first novel by British author Elizabeth Delo. Senior Editor Kate Ballard bought the rights from Annette Green at Annette Green Authors’ Agency.
Becoming Liz Taylor tells the story of Val, a widow living in Weston-Super-Mare, who spends lonely evenings dressing up as the movie star Elizabeth Taylor. It seems to be a way of coping with the loss and trauma she has experienced in her life. One day, when Val sees a pram left unattended on the seafront, on a whim she kicks off the brake and carries on walking…
Set in the present and the 1970s, Becoming Liz Taylor is a vivid and haunting depiction of love, loss and bereavement.
Elizabeth Delo is a writer and former teacher who lives in Somerset, whose debut was described by journalist and novelist Anna-Marie Crowhurst as (author of 2018’s The Illumination of Ursula Flight) ‘assured and fluid, beautiful and unexpected. I found (it) compelling and perfectly balanced, and the plot and premise original and clever.’
Elizabeth Delo comments:
‘It was whilst standing in a queue in Weston-super-Mare back in 2015 that I overheard a line of dialogue which made me curious. An idea for a story formed, and I wrote the novel during my MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. I was so excited when my agent Annette Green told me that Kate Ballard had fallen for my main character Val, and her heartbreaking story. I am really looking forward to working with Kate, and am delighted that Becoming Liz Taylor is being published by Allen & Unwin.’
Annette Green comments:
‘Becoming Liz Taylor is a compelling story of maternal love, loss and grief: the author gets to the very heart of the matter. Val is a character with whom all women will empathise.’
Kate Ballard comments:
‘I was hugely impressed by Elizabeth’s writing in this truly accomplished debut and found myself gripped to Val’s story from the get-go – initially shocked by the abduction that sets events into motion and duly intrigued to find out what happens but also fascinated by this deeply troubled protagonist, into whose psyche we’re given a brilliantly believable insight as the reasons for her delusion start to reveal themselves. I found this an original, incredibly tense and ultimately poignant read, perfect for readers of Rachel Joyce, Ruth Hogan and Emma Healey, and my team and I are hugely exciting to be getting to publish it and share it with readers everywhere next summer.’
Atlantic buys Colin Walsh’s debut Kala in five-way auction
Atlantic Fiction Publishing Director James Roxburgh has acquired UK Comm ex Can rights for Kala by Colin Walsh as part of a two-book deal. Won at a five-way auction from Lucy Luck at C&W agency, Kala will be Atlantic’s biggest debut novel of 2023 and will be backed by a significant publicity and marketing campaign. Kala will be published in HB, TPB and E-book in Summer 2023.
Fifteen-year-old Kala Lannan disappeared from the tourist town of Kinlough in November 2003. No trace was ever found – until now, fifteen years later. Remains have been discovered at the building site by Lough Caille. The day after Helen Laughlin, Kala’s best friend and confidante, reluctantly returns to the town she ran from ten years before, it is confirmed that the remains belong to Kala. Helen falls in with two other members of their teenage gang – Mush, scarred and scared to leave the safety of his ma’s café on the high street, and the Famous Joe Brennan, Kala’s boyfriend, a commercially successful but emotionally conflicted musician newly returned in an effort to dry out and reconnect with something authentic in life. Their actions over the following days are propelled by the need to understand what happened to the girl who meant so much to each of them and whose disappearance upended their lives. But to find answers they have to confront their own complicity in the events that led to Kala’s disappearance. Ultimately, they must do what others should have done before them to stop the violent patterns of their town’s past repeating themselves once again.
Colin Walsh’s short stories have won several awards including the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Prize and the Hennessy Literary Award. In 2019 he was named Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year. His writing has been published in the Stinging Fly, the Irish Times and broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. Kala is his first novel. He is from Galway and lives in Belgium.
James Roxburgh, Publisher for Atlantic Fiction, says
‘Kala made me think of Mad and Furious City meets Mare of Easttown, brilliant on the glorious, woozy experience of being young and getting off with each other, of being fearless and full of big ideas, of the kind of friendships that feel everlasting and unbreakable – and then showing how those childhood friendships often retreat and fall apart, how adulthood brings with it all kinds of fears and narrow ideas, how getting off with each other has its inherent phantoms of jealousy and regret. And all of this orbiting a set-up of small-town secrets and bones found on a building site, the kind of perfect crime-noir storytelling that left the publicity director half in awe and half resentful of Colin because she’d entered into a death-pact with the book in which she couldn’t put it down till 3am. I think Colin Walsh is a major new voice in literary fiction and bringing him to the list with a two-book deal a major statement of ambition for Atlantic Fiction.’
Atlantic Books to publish bold new novel by Martin MacInnes
Atlantic Fiction Publishing Director James Roxburgh has acquired World rights for In Ascension by Martin MacInnes from Rachel Conway at Georgina Capel Associates. In Ascension will be published in HB, TPB and E-book in February 2023.
Martin MacInnes was born in Inverness in 1983. He is the author of Infinite Ground and Gathering Evidence, and he is the winner of a Somerset Maugham Award, the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and a Manchester Fiction Prize. In 2021 he was selected by the Guardian/British Council as One of Ten Writers Shaping the UK’s Future. He lives in Edinburgh.
Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as a refuge from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the marine world of her childhood, she excels in postgraduate research on ancient algae. When an unfathomable vent appears in the mid-Atlantic floor, Leigh joins the investigating team; what she finds there will change her life forever.
Around the same time, a trio of engineers, unknown to each other, make a seismic breakthrough in rocket propulsion, announcing an almost limitless era of space exploration. Billions of dollars is poured into projects, and Leigh’s classified research on the ocean vent sees her recruited to develop an experimental food source for off-world travel. From her base in the Mojave desert, she’s drawn further into the space agency’s work, where she learns of a series of anomalies suggesting a beacon sent from the far side of the solar system. In responding to this beacon, Leigh embarks on a journey that will take her across the breadth of the cosmos and the fullness of a single human life.
James Roxburgh, Publishing Director for Atlantic Fiction, says:
‘I often ambush folk to tell them that Martin MacInnes is one of the UK’s boldest, most original writers at work today, and In Ascension is more stunning support of that claim. It’s a novel that takes our protagonist up into the outer reaches of space, but one that explores the basic experience of being alive with the same wonder and awe that we usually reserve for the stars; it seeks to radically decentre the human project and aims to put us back into a contract of humility with the world around us; it has a deep interest in the far limits of science that makes me think of Solaris or Annihilation (and a stunning, mobius-strip twist that reminds me of Arrival), but its fundamental curiosity in the moral stuff of what, who and how we are makes me think more of Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, Richard Powers. It’s just an extraordinary achievement, and if the pages of the trade press can count as an ambushing, then, hi!, Martin MacInnes is one of the UK’s boldest, most original writers at work today.’
Allen & Unwin UK to publish On This Day in Politics by Iain Dale
Allen & Unwin UK have acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Iain Dale’s On This Day in Politics from Martin Redfern at Northbank Talent Management and will publish in hardback in October 2022.
Iain Dale is an accomplished broadcaster, presenting his own daily radio show on LBC, and several podcasts. He is a regular on Question Time, Newsnight, Good Morning Britain, Politics Live and a regular columnist for the Telegraph, Evening Standard and the ‘i’ newspaper. He is the author/editor of more than 40 books, most recently The Presidents.
On This Day in Politics is an informative, accessible and opinionated book on key moments in British political history that have occurred on every day from 1 January through to 31 December. From the first meeting of an elected English parliament on 20 January 1275 to the abolition of the Slave Trade on 25 March 1807; from the Peterloo massacre of 16 August 1819 to Britain voting to leave the EU on 23 June 2016, there is a growing thirst for knowledge about the history of our constitutional settlement, our party system and how our parliamentary democracy has developed. Writing as an observer of political history, but also someone with an opinion, acclaimed political journalist Iain Dale charts the main events of the last few hundred years, with one event per page, per day.
Ed Faulkner, Publisher at Allen & Unwin UK, says:
“I am absolutely delighted to be working with Iain once again and bringing him to Allen & Unwin and Atlantic Books. I hope he won’t mind me saying that nobody is more obsessed about the history of British politics than he is, so he is the perfect author for what will be a treasure trove of 800 years of British political history, featuring fascinating characters and events and a few surprises to boot.”
Iain Dale says:
“The thirst for knowledge about politics and Britain’s political history has grown immeasurably over recent years and I hope On This Day in Politics will add to people’s knowledge of some of the most well known, and many of the lesser known events over the centuries. I know I have learned a huge amount about events I thought I already knew a lot about! It’s great to be publishing another book with Ed Faulkner at Atlantic/Allen & Unwin after he commissioned my last book Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? This book is nothing if not eclectic and unpredictable with pages on events that you would expect to read about, like the outbreak of World War II but also events like the election of Britain’s first black MP in 1832, the first sitting MP to come out, the birth of Sir Robin Day, the creation of Britain’s first National Park and the day a future prime minister fought a duel with the Foreign Secretary. 366 pages, 366 events and 366 words on each of them. I hope readers’ imaginations will be captured by some of the events covered in the book and will then want to undertake further reading. If that happens my mission will have been accomplished.”
On This Day in Politics will publish in hardback in October 2022 on the Allen & Unwin UK imprint of Atlantic Books.
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