London Book Fair 2021 Highlights
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London Book Fair 2021
Highlights
2
Welcome to our London 2021 Translation Rights Guide
Contents
Fiction pp. 4-19
Non-Fiction pp. 21-28
3
ADA
Christian Berkel
90,000 copies sold in four months
In ADA, bestselling German author and acclaimed actor Christian
Berkel draws on his own family history and events of the twentieth
century to explore what life was like for many German families in the
aftermath of the Second World War, a period the next generation would
remember as one of deafening silence, a collective speechlessness at
what had taken place.
Opening in 1989 when the Berlin Wall comes down, the novel follows
Ada as she tries to come to terms with who she is, a post-war child who
has witnessed the world rebuilding itself around her. From her early
years spent in Argentina with her Jewish mother, to Germany and a
long-awaited father, Ada struggles to find her place. With the student
movements of the 1960s, she will find greater freedom, moving first to
Germany: Ullstein, Paris and later to America, encountering a whole new world and also
October 2020 coming to understand more about her own roots.
Material: Against the backdrop of revolutionary historical events, Christian Berkel
German MS, 311 pp tells of guilt and love, of silence and longing, of searching and arriving -
English sample and synopsis and proves himself to be a masterful narrator.
Previous publications:
Der Apfelbaum (2018) Christian Berkel was born in Berlin, Germany. His first novel, Der
Apfelbaum (The Apple Tree), was published by Ullstein in 2018 and
Previous publishers: became a bestseller. From the age of 14 he lived in Paris where he took
France - Fayard drama lessons with Jean-Louis Barrault and Pierre Berlin. He then
Greece - Joconda/ trained at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin and
Microskopio appeared on stage in Augsburg, Düsseldorf, Munich, Vienna and at the
Italy - Mondadori Schiller Theatre, Berlin. He has appeared in many German television
Netherlands - A W Bruna productions and secured a major role in the Academy Award-nominated
Poland - Świat Książki film Downfall as Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck. He has followed this with
Russia - Eksmo significant roles in the Paul Verhoeven-directed Dutch movie Black
Spain - HarperCollins Iberica Book and the big-budget American movies Flightplan, Valkyrie and
Quentin Tarantino’s Academy Award-nominated Inglourious Basterds. He
lives with his family in Berlin.
4
IO SONO L’ABISSO (I AM THE ABYSS)
Donato Carrisi
It’s exactly ten to five in the morning. The lake is just visible on the
horizon: a long streak of lead, black and silver. The man who cleans is
about to begin a day of collecting rubbish. He’s not disgusted by his
work; indeed, he knows that it is necessary. And he knows that it’s in
what people throw away that the greatest secrets are hidden. He knows
how to interpret these things, how to use them. For he too has a secret
he is keeping.
The man who cleans lives a life of habit and routine, with the exception
of the occasional - but memorable - special evening.
What he does not know is that in a few hours, his orderly life will be
overturned by an encounter with a girl with a violet streak in her hair.
He, who has chosen to be invisible, a barely perceptible shadow at the
margins of society, will find himself caught up in the unspeakable story
Italy: Longanesi, of this girl. The risk is not only that someone will discover who he is and
November 2020 what he actually does, but, as has been the case since he was a child, that
he will upset the man behind the green door.
Material:
Italian MS There’s another thing that the man who cleans doesn’t know, that out
English sample and synopsis there someone is already looking for him. The fly hunter has set herself
a mission: to end violence and save as many women as she can. Nothing
Rights sold: will stop her, neither her physical ailments nor the dark fame that ac-
France - Calmann Levy
companies her.
Poland - Wyd. Albatros
Serbia - Vulkan
When a clue emerges from the depths of the lake, the hunter knows that
it is a message she alone can understand. There is only one thing that
Previous publishers:
she can, and must, do: hunt down the invisible shadow at the heart of
Croatia - Znanje
the abyss.
North Macedonia - Matica
Makedonska
Russia - Azbooka-Atticus
Donato Carrisi is the author of eleven international bestselling novels,
Spain - Duomo
Turkey - Pegasus all published in Italy by Longanesi. His first novel Il suggeritore (The
UK - Little, Brown Whisperer) was published in 2009 and won several major prizes including
Italy’s prestigious Bancarella prize. His novels have been translated into
over thirty languages. His novel La ragazza nella nebbia (The Girl in the Fog)
was turned into a major international film, starring Toni Servillo and
Jean Reno, and it won the David di Donatello Prize for Best Debut
Director 2018. L’uomo del labirinto (Into the Labyrinth), starring Toni
Servillo and Dustin Hoffman, was released in October 2019.
5
THE REGISTER (L’APPELLO)
Alessandro D’Avenia
Ten years after the outstanding success of White As Milk, Red As
Blood, D’Avenia returns to write about school as a unique experience
where we grow, confront our own limits and become the people we
wish to be.
Omero Romeo, a 45-year-old science teacher always wearing sunglasses, is
called to be a supply teacher to a class preparing for their final exams. It is
a very difficult class where many students have behavioural issues, causing
previous teachers to leave. The challenge is even more difficult for Omero,
who is blind. But before long, the children realise their new teacher is
interested in them, and not only in their education. Omero wants to know
who they are and why each of them is indispensable to the world, like the
elements of a periodic table.
He puts into place a new way of calling the register, inviting the students to
Italy: Mondadori, November share something about themselves. There is a girl who has lost her father
2020 and doesn’t know how to process the bereavement; another who wants to
save the world and another who no longer wishes to be there; a pupil who
Material: hides an eating disorder behind a forced state of happiness. There is a
Italian MS, 348 pp talented trap singer who lives in a foster home, a boy who goes off the rails
English sample and synopsis following the separation of his parents, a computer geek who will only
contact his friends from behind a screen and a violent teenager who takes
Previous publications: part in secret boxing matches to earn money. For the first time they are all
Ogni storia è una storia d’amore truly seen.
(2017)
L'arte di essere fragili (2016) The ten teenagers begin to talk about themselves, about the search for their
Ciò che inferno non è (2014) own voice and their own truth, experiencing a journey of genuine growth,
Cose che nessuno sa (2011) far greater than a State exam could ever certify. But miracles always have a
Bianca come il latte, rossa come il price.
sangue (2010)
Previous publishers:
Alessandro D’Avenia, holds a PhD in Classical Literature, and teaches
China - Beijing Xiron Books
Ancient Greek, Latin and Literature at a high school in Milan. His debut
France - PUF
novel, Bianca come il latte, rossa come il sangue (White as Milk, Red as Blood),
Greece - Pedio
Italy - Mondadori
published by Mondadori in 2010, was translated into more than twenty
Poland - Znak languages and sold more than one million copies in Italy. A film version
Portugal - A esfera dos livros was released in 2012. His book, L’arte di essere fragili (The Art of Being Fragile),
Russia - Arkadia Publishing published by Mondadori in 2016, was number one across all genres in Italy
Slovenia - Druzina D.O.O for more than five months and has since sold more than 400,000 copies in
Spain - La esfera de los libros hardback. His latest book, Ogni storia e’ una storia d’amore (Every Story Is A
Taiwan (Complex Chinese) - Love Story), published in October 2017, was also number one in the charts.
Heliopolis Culture Group Both these books became bestselling theatre shows directed by Gabriele
UK - Oneworld Vacis. His five books combined have sold 2.5 million copies in Italy alone.
US - HarperCollins
6
THE DOUBLE
Ann Gosslin
When Vidor Kiraly, a world-renowned neuroscientist and Cambridge
don, violently attacks a man at a prize ceremony (while in an apparent
state of psychosis), the story attracts the attention of Anton Gessen, a
psychiatrist with a penchant for unusual cases, who runs a private clinic
in the Swiss Alps.
Not long after Vidor arrives at the clinic, Gessen suspects that his
newest patient is not all he seems. As Vidor resists Gessen’s efforts to
uncover the secrets of his past, a cat-and-mouse game ensues, with
Gessen trying to discover the truth about his patient’s mysterious
behaviour, before he hurts anyone else. Purportedly the son of a
prominent Hungarian businessman in Paris’s émigré community, Vidor’s
story fails to add up, and Gessen begins to question the veracity of the
man’s identity.
UK: Legend Press, February When Gessen travels to Cambridge and Paris to uncover clues about
2021 Vidor’s life, a tip from one of Vidor’s students about the disappearance
UK audio: WF Howes of a fellow researcher suggests foul play. After a patient at the clinic dies
from a mysterious fall, Gessen suspects Vidor of having a role in his
Material: death. Had the dead man uncovered something about Vidor’s true
MS, 96,000 words identity, such that it cost him his life?
Previous publications:
The Shadow Bird (2020) Ann Gosslin was born and raised in New England in the US, and
moved overseas after leaving University. Having held several full-time
Previous publishers: roles in the pharmaceutical industry, with stints as a teacher and
Germany - Piper translator in Europe, Asia, and Africa, she currently works as a
US - Harlequin freelancer and lives in Switzerland. Her debut, The Shadow Bird, was
US audio - Dreamscape published in July 2020. The Double is her second novel.
'A completely engrossing read! I found Ann's writing compelling, elegant
and convincing, and the story pulled me in and totally transported me.'
- Katherine Webb, best-selling author of The Legacy
and The Disappearance
7
SHE AND I
Hannah King
Jude and Keeley have been best friends since childhood, growing up
next door to one another on an estate in their Northern Irish
hometown. Jude has everything Keeley doesn’t: a stable, loving family, a
hot meal every night, a bright academic future ahead of her, while
Keeley and her half-brother Mack run wild.
On New Year’s Day, 2020, the girls wake up after a party at Keeley’s. A
young man, Keeley’s boyfriend, lies dead in the garage, known to
everyone as ‘The Den’. As police interview those who were at the party,
including Jude and Keeley, the history of their intense bond unfolds and
both girls are urged to share the one thing that just might tear them
apart: the truth. Is Keeley the bad influence and Jude the ‘golden girl’
after all? What is clear is that nothing is as it seems…
A twisty novel about female friendship, class, appearances and the
UK: Raven Books danger of assumptions.
(Bloomsbury), Spring 2022
Material: Hannah King was born in County Down in 1994. She received a First
Unedited MS, 120,000 words Class degree in English with Creative Writing from Queen’s University
Edited MS due spring 2021 Belfast in 2016, and went on become a proof-reader at a Magic Circle
law firm while studying for her Master of Arts in Creative Writing in
2017. Her short story ‘A Fair Grief’ featured in the 2019 QUB
publication Blackbird. She and I is her first novel. When not writing,
Hannah enjoys befriending other people’s dogs and sampling wines
from around the world.
8
RURIK (РЮРИК)
Anna Kozlova
Following her mother's death and father's rapid re-marriage, Marta is
packed off to boarding school outside Moscow. Denied the truth about
her mother's death, Marta runs away from school and hitches a ride to
freedom and adventure with a passing motorcyclist, Mikhail.
After stealing his bike and taking a ‘shortcut’ she finds herself hopelessly
lost in a seemingly endless forest. Unbeknownst to her, Marta has
become an internet sensation: loved and reviled in equal measure. Alone,
she reflects on her mother's troubling death; how she was raised by her
father; her stepmother Irina and her beloved pet, Rurik.
Over a fortnight, an increasingly desperate and delirious Marta comes
closer to finding herself as Katya, a reporter investigating her case, and
Nikolay, a woodsman with his own tragic past, close in on her. Mikhail,
Katya, Nikolay all find their lives irrevocably altered by Marta's
Russia: Phantom Press, 2019 disappearance as their own lives become public property.
Material:
Russian MS, 288 pp Anna Kozlova is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter raised in a
English sample material family of writers. A Muscovite and graduate of Moscow State
University's journalism faculty, she has reported for some of Russia's
Previous publications: leading newspapers and magazines. Winner of both Russia's top literary
F20 (2016) prize, for her novel F20 about a young girl with schizophrenia, and also
All You Wanted, But Were Russia's top screenwriting award for Garden Ring, a modern-day, society
Afraid to Burn (2011) saga, her most recent novel is Rurik, a psychological thriller about a
Those of Clear Conscience (2008) runaway teen turned unwitting cause célèbre. She lives in Moscow with
Hullo Winner! (2006) her husband and two children.
Crybaby (2005)
‘Rurik is "edgy" with lots of drinking, sex, motorcycle riding, and a weird
death... [it] has tons of verve and a bit of grit, too; it’s both wise and
wiseass. It’s a very here-and-now novel examining social mores and
wealth.’
- Lisa Hayden, critic and translator
‘Kozlova's greatest strength is that she writes about "the here and now."
Her characters are among us, so to speak; they buy groceries and booze
in the same stores as we do, use the same social networks and puddle
about in the same news.’
- Mikhail Visel, 'Red Square', Chief Editor's Choice
9
UNA RABBIA SEMPLICE (A Simple Rage)
Davide Longo
A top ten bestseller in Italy
It’s a gloomy spring for Chief of Police Arcadipane. Every street, every
bar, every restaurant in the city is a reminder. He who has always found
opportunity where others give in, but now he is tired; his sharpness
seems to have dulled. He is roused from his torpor by a violent incident
like so many others. Behind it, however, is concealed an evil so
extraordinary, it’s hard to believe.
Vincenze Arcadipane is 55, with a failed marriage behind him and a
future that doesn’t promise much. To add to this, he’s now convinced
he’s lost the intuition that guided him in his investigations. But when a
woman is beaten up outside the metro station in Turin, and the
perpetrator tracked down in just a few hours, that intuition tells him
something isn’t right about such an easy resolution.
Italy: Einaudi, January 2021
He decides to look into it further, with the help of Corso Bramard, his
Material: old boss and mentor, and the troubled agent Isa Mancini: a tried and
Italian MS, 166 pp tested team formed around a strange former police officer with an
English sample obsessive streak. Together they will uncover the rules of a wild and
lethal game, a descent into the underground world of the Web which,
Rights sold: ring after ring, will bring them to where the “things that don’t need to be
Germany - Rowohlt seen” are handled.
Option publishers:
UK (WEL) - MacLehose Davide Longo is a writer, documentary-maker and teacher of creative
Press writing at the Scuola Holden in Turin. For his debut novel, Un mattino a
Irgalem (Marcos y Marcos), he was awarded the Premio Grinzane and the
Previous novels in the Premio Via Po in 2001. With his next works he came to be considered
series: one of the best Italian writers to emerge in recent years. Il mangiatore di
Le bestie giovani (2018) pietre (Fandango, 2004) won the Città di Bergamo and the Viadana
Il caso Bramard (2014) prizes. It was followed by E piu non dimandare (Corraini, 2007) and Ballata
di un amore italiano (Feltrinelli, 2011). His third novel, L’Uomo verticale
(Fandango, 2010), was awarded the Premio Lucca.
10BETWEEN TONGUES
Paul McQuade
Tongues cut out and sewn back in, girls change bodies, become wolves,
coyotes, birds, and on an island in the north of Scotland, an unexpected
grave digger tries to mourn a loss that can’t be said. The stories of
Between Tongues take us to mining camps in post-war Japan, where in ‘In
Ribbons’, foxes hunt in the night, and a young boy finds himself
confronted with a past that hasn’t quite vanished, while in ‘This
Impossible Flesh’, a couple commit themselves to the gruesome task of
making a family out of their own bodies. For readers of Camilla
Grudova, Daisy Johnson and Carmen Maria Machado, among others,
McQuade’s stories span myth and fable, pressing the limits of
technology and language, searching out those strange places, as in ‘Les
Archives du Coeur’, where people without voices find themselves.
Paul McQuade is an award-winning writer and translator. He was born
UK: Confingo, June 2021 in Glasgow and has since lived in Edinburgh, Paris and Tokyo. He is
currently based in upstate New York, where he is completing a PhD in
Material: Japanese literature at Cornell. He was awarded the Sceptre Prize for
MS, 40,000 words New Writing 2014 and was the recipient of the ACF London Writing
Prize 2017. His stories have been shortlisted for the White Review
Prize, the Bridport Prize and The Master’s Review Award. He has also
been published in Gutter magazine, Pank, Structo and Minor
Literatures, and has had stories featured in anthologies including Best
British Short Stories 2019, Best of British Fantasy 2018, Out There: An
Anthology of Scottish LGBT Writing and Haunted Voices: An Anthology of
Gothic Storytelling from Scotland. Paul was selected for inclusion in
Weidenfeld & Nicolson’s Hometown Tales series, which champions
writing from and about diverse regions across the UK. Hometown Tales:
Glasgow, featuring work by Paul and by Kirsty Logan, was published in
June 2018. He is now working on a novel.
Manchester-based press Confingo, who launched in 2017, specialise in
short stories and literary translations, with their first titles being
Ornithology by Nicholas Royle (longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story
Prize 2018) and We Were Strangers, a collection inspired by the Joy
Division album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ and featuring stories by Jenn
Ashworth, Jessie Greengrass, Sophie Mackintosh and Eley Williams,
among others.
11THE BIRD TATTOO
Dunya Mikhail
Longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2021
For readers who loved Khaled Husseini’s bestselling novel The Kite
Runner, a dramatic and moving story spanning two tumultuous decades
in Iraq.
Helen is a young Yazidi woman, living with her family in a mountain
village in Sinjar, northern Iraq. One day she finds a local bird caught in
a trap, and frees it, just as the trapper, Elias, returns. At first he is angry
at Helen for undoing his work, but soon he sees the error of his ways
and vows never to keep a bird captive again.
Helen and Elias fall deeply in love, marry and start a family. But their
happy existence is shattered when Elias, a journalist, goes missing. A
brutal Organization is taking over the land, its members cloaking their
Arabic: Dar Alrafidain violence in religious devotion. Helen’s search for her husband results in
(Lebanon/ Iraq), June 2020 her own captivity: she is transported to a market and callously sold to
the highest bidder, again and again.
Material:
Arabic MS, 256pp She eventually escapes her captors and is reunited with some of her
English translation by the family. But her life is forever changed. Elias remains missing and her
author sons, now young recruits to the Organization, are like strangers. Will
she find harmony and happiness again?
Publishers of The Bee-
keeper of Sinjar: Chronicling a world of great upheaval, love and loss, beauty and horror,
France - Grasset The Bird Tattoo will stay in readers’ minds long after the last page.
Italy - Nutrimenti
Poland - Otwarte
Portugal - ASAII Dunya Mikhail (b. 1965) worked as a journalist for the Baghdad
UK - Serpent’s Tail Observer until, facing increasing threats from the Iraqi authorities, she
US - New Directions fled first to Jordan, then to the United States. In 2001, she was awarded
the UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. Her first book
in English, the poetry collection The War Works Hard (2005), won a
2004 Pen Translation Fund Award. It was also shortlisted for the
Griffin Poetry Prize and was named one of the twenty-five books to
remember by the New York Public Library in 2005. Diary of A Wave
Outside the Sea (2009) won the 2010 Arab American Book Award for
poetry. Her third collection, The Iraqi Nights, was published in 2014. In
2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and published her
first work of literary non-fiction, The Beekeeper of Sinjar, to great acclaim.
Her fourth collection, In Her Feminine Sign, was released in summer
2019, and her debut novel, The Bird Tattoo, was published in Arabic in
2020.
12THE SANATORIUM
Sarah Pearse
An instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller
Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club Pick, February 2021
An imposing, isolated hotel, high up in the Swiss Alps, is the last place
Elin Warner wants to be. But she's taken time off from her job as a
detective, so when she receives an invitation out of the blue to celebrate
her estranged brother's recent engagement, she has no choice but to
accept. Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately
feels on edge. Though it's beautiful, something about the hotel, recently
converted from an abandoned sanatorium, makes her nervous - as does
her brother, Isaac.
And when they wake the following morning to discover his fiancée Laure
has vanished without a trace, Elin's unease grows. With the storm cutting
off access to and from the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more
UK: Transworld, the remaining guests start to panic.
February 2021 (WEL)
US: Pamela Dorman Books, But no-one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And
February 2021 she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger
they're all in . .
Material: MS, 97,000 words
Rights sold: Sarah Pearse lives by the sea in South Devon with her husband and two
Brazil - Intrinseca (2-book deal) daughters. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of
Bulgaria - Era Media Warwick and worked in Brand PR for a variety of household brands.
Croatia - Egmont After moving to Switzerland in her twenties, she spent every spare
Czech Rep - Euromedia (2- moment exploring the mountains and still has a home in the Swiss Alpine
book deal) town of Crans Montana, the dramatic setting that inspired her debut novel
Germany - Goldmann The Sanatorium.
Greece - Psichogios (2-book
deal)
Hungary - XXI. Szazad
‘The Sanatorium will keep you checking over your shoulder. This spine-
Italy - Newton Compton
tingling, atmospheric thriller has it all: an eerie Alpine setting, sharp prose,
Japan - Kadokawa Shoten
and twists you’ll never see coming. A must-read.’
Lithuania - Sofoklis
– Richard Osman
Netherlands - Ambo Anthos
Norway - Gyldendal Norsk
Poland - Prószyński Media ‘An eerie, atmospheric novel that had me completely on the edge of my
Portugal - Porto Editora seat.’
Romania - Nemira – Reese Witherspoon
Russia - Eksmo
Slovakia - Ikar
Slovenia - Ucila (2-book deal)
Sweden - Bokfabriken
13THE RETREAT
Sarah Pearse
One June day, in the grip of a heatwave, a group of friends and family
arrive at Lumen, an exclusive wellness resort on an island a few miles off
Devon’s dramatic south coast. It’s meant to be a family reunion, a
chance to let off steam, but the morning after they arrive, a body is
found on the rocks below the resort’s clifftop yoga pavilion.
The island, known locally as Reaper’s Rock because of the eerie rocky
outcrop that dominates the island, has a dark past. It’s still trying to
shake off the legacy of the Creacher Killings – a series of violent
murders on the island during a school adventure camp in 2002.
DS Elin Warner, only recently returned to work after a career break, is
assigned to the case, but her initial theories are soon discounted when
the body of another guest is found in a sinister setting. Elin quickly
realises she’s on the hunt for a ruthless killer.
UK: Transworld, Spring 2022
US: Pamela Dorman Books
With the police dealing with a major incident on the mainland, Elin is
forced to work the case alone. She’s desperate to prove herself, but
Material: MS due August 2021
rapidly has to face up to the island’s troubling past and her own
memories of being on the island…
Rights sold:
Brazil - Intrinseca
Czech Republic - Euromedia
Greece - Psychogios Praise for The Sanatorium
Slovenia - Ucila
Spain - Atico de los libros ‘The Sanatorium is an absolutely splendid Gothic thriller – gracious in its
nods to the classic locked-room mystery, yet bold enough to burst out
Previous publications: of that room through the window. Pearse writes prose fresh and crisp as
The Sanatorium (2021) Swiss Alp powder, and her characters fascinate even as their numbers
dwindle.’
Previous publishers: – A. J. Finn
Croatia - Egmont
Germany - Goldmann ‘Dark, suspenseful and downright chilling, The Sanatorium is a triumph. It
Hungary - XXI. Szazad had me on the edge of my seat from the first page. Pearse has a big fu-
Italy - Newton Compton ture ahead of her.’
Japan - Kadokawa Shoten – Sally Hepworth
Lithuania - Sofoklis
Netherlands - Ambo Anthos ‘A seriously sinister setting, an incredible sense of place and a twisty, un-
Norway - Gyldendal Norsk predictable plot combine to make an utterly terrifying read. I loved it.’
Poland - Prószyński Media
– Allie Reynolds
Portugal - Porto Editora
Romania - Nemira
Russia - Eksmo
Slovakia - Ikar
14THE KINGDOMS
Natasha Pulley
1900. England has fallen. London is the industrial centre of the
French Republic.
Joe Tournier is sent to Scotland to repair the generator of a lighthouse
where three men have disappeared. The trip would be hard enough, but
Joe suffers from a strange form of epilepsy that gives him visions and
memories of things that never happened.
When he reaches the lighthouse, peculiar things are happening there. The
winter comes in at running pace, there are two moons in the sky, and
then a man from last century washes up on the beach; Missouri Kite, a
navy captain who fought at Trafalgar. Before long, Joe realizes that Kite
isn’t the one in the wrong time - he is.
After being pressed into English navy service under Kite’s command, Joe
UK: Bloomsbury, May 2021 rages and plots to escape before Kite can force him to do something that
US: Bloomsbury will change history. But though Kite is ruthless and half mad, he’s
bizarrely familiar too, and the longer Joe spends with him, the stronger
Material: the feeling becomes that somehow, they know each other already. But
MS, 448pp finding out how might cost Joe everything.
Rights sold: Told with her trademark shining intelligence and wit, The Kingdoms is the
Italy - Bompiani new, standalone, historical fantasy from international bestselling author
Natasha Pulley.
Previous publishers:
Denmark - Frydenlund/ Think The Man in the High Castle meets Master and Commander.
Alhambra
Japan - HarperCollins Japan
Netherlands - De Fontein Natasha Pulley studied English Literature at Oxford University, where
Russia - AST she first had the idea for her debut The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. After
Spain (World) - Lumen graduating, Natasha taught English in China for six weeks. It was there
Spain (Catalan) - Rosa dels that she learned what being a foreigner is. After stints working at
vents Waterstones as a bookseller over Christmas, then at Cambridge
Sweden - Tallbergs University Press as a publishing assistant in the astronomy and maths
Turkey - Pegasus departments, she did the Creative Writing MA at UEA. The Watchmaker of
Filigree Street (Bloomsbury UK/US, 2015) was shortlisted for the Authors’
Club Best First Novel Award and Winner of a Betty Trask prize and
became an international bestseller. It was followed by The Bedlam Stacks
(2017) and The Lost Future of Pepperharrow (2020).
15VOYEUR
Francesca Reece
Tinder Press’ lead fiction debut of summer 2021
A brilliant new voice in fiction, for readers of Naoise Dolan,
Anna Hope, Sally Rooney and Emma Jane Unsworth.
Leah, a young woman who has found herself 'ambitioned' out of
London, is now aimlessly adrift in Paris. Tired of odd jobs in cafés
and teaching English to unresponsive social media influencers, her
heart skips a beat when she spots an advert for a writer seeking an as-
sistant.
Michael was once the bright young star of the London literary scene,
now a washed-up author with writer's block. He doesn't place much
hope in the advert, but after meeting Leah is filled with an inspiration
he hasn't felt in years.
UK: Tinder Press (Headline),
June 2021 (two-book pre-empt) When Michael offers Leah the opportunity to join him and his family
in their rambling but glorious property in the south of France for the
Rights sold: summer, she finally feels her luck is turning. But as she begins to
Germany - Fischer transcribe the diaries from his debauched life in 1960s Soho,
Poland - Prószyński something begins to nag at Leah's sense of fulfilment; that there might
be more to Michael than meets the eye.
Material:
MS, 103,000 words A sizzling, propulsive story of desire, power and the internalised male
gaze; a meditation on class, memory and the act of storytelling itself.
Francesca Reece was born in Wales in 1991 and studied French and
English Literature at King’s College London and the Sorbonne. She
has been based in Paris for the past five years, and now lives in
Lonon. She was the 2019 recipient of the Desperate Literature Prize
for her short story So Long Sarajevo/They Miss You So Badly. This is her
first novel.
‘It's devastatingly witty, compulsively readable and a little like Sally
Rooney meeting Martin Amis in Paris.’
– Francine Toon, author of Pine
‘Unsettling, addictive, and razor-sharp, Francesca Reece is a devastat-
ingly compelling new voice in literary fiction’
– Louise O’Neill, author of After the Silence and Only Ever Yours
16KOLOLO HILL
Neema Shah
When you’re left with nothing but your secrets,
how do you start again?
Uganda 1972
A devastating decree is issued: all Ugandan Asians must leave the country in
ninety days. They must take only what they can carry, give up their money
and never return.
For Asha and Pran, married a matter of months, it means abandoning the
family business that Pran has worked so hard to save. For his mother, Jaya,
it means saying goodbye to the house that has been her home for decades.
But violence is escalating in Kampala, and people are disappearing. Will
they all make it to safety in Britain and will they be given refuge if they do?
UK: Picador, February 2021 And all the while, a terrible secret about the expulsion hangs over them,
(two-book deal) threatening to tear the family apart.
Material: From the green hilltops of Kampala, to the terraced houses of London,
MS, 352 pp Neema Shah’s extraordinarily moving debut Kololo Hill explores what it
means to leave your home behind, what it takes to start again, and the
lengths some will go to protect their loved ones.
Neema Shah’s parents and grandparents left India to make their homes in
East Africa and later in London, where Neema was born and lives. After
studying Law at UCL, Neema pursued a career in marketing. Kololo Hill is
her first book, and she is working on her second.
‘[An] incredible debut’
– Stylist
‘Shah is excellent on the theme of home . . . an absorbing storyteller’
– Daily Mail
‘An impressive, confident debut about family and survival, against the back-
drop of a history that is not written about often enough’
– Nikesh Shukla
‘Devastatingly beautiful . . . every sentence is a revelation.’
– Nikita Gill, author of The Girl and the Goddess
17DEAD HEAD
C J Skuse
Victim. Murderer. Serial Killer. What next?
Can a serial killer ever lose their taste for murder? Since confessing to her
bloody murder spree Rhiannon Lewis, the now-notorious Sweetpea killer,
has been feeling out-of-sorts.
Having fled the UK on a cruise ship to start her new life, Rhiannon
should be feeling happy. But it’s hard to turn over a new leaf when she’s
stuck in an oversized floating tin can with the Gammonati and screaming
kids. Especially when they remind her of Ivy – the baby she gave up for a
life carrying on killing.
Rhiannon is all at sea. She’s lost her taste for blood but is it really gone
for good? Maybe Rhiannon is realising that there’s more to life than
death…
UK: HQ, February 2021
The third book in the critically-acclaimed series following Sweetpea and In
Material:
Bloom featuring everyone’s favourite truly original girl-next-door serial
MS, 461 pp
killer Rhiannon Lewis.
Rights sold for the
Sweetpea series:
C J Skuse is the author of the Young Adult novels Pretty Bad
China - Beijing White Horse
Things, Rockoholic, Dead Romantic, Monster and The Deviants. C J’s first adult
(2 books)
title Sweetpea was published by HQ in April 2017. The sequel, In
France - Denoel (2 books)
Bloom, followed in 2018 and her latest book, The Alibi Girl, was published
Poland - Burda Publishing
in February 2020. Born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England, C J has
Turkey - TEAS Press Inc.
first class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Young People and,
(2 books)
aside from writing, lectures on the MA in Writing for Young People at
Bath Spa University.
TV - See-Saw
Praise for C J Skuse:
‘Think Bridget Jones meets American Psycho.’
– Sarra Manning, Red, on Sweetpea
‘One of the funniest and best written thrillers published this year.’
– Daily Mail, on In Bloom
18THE LAST HOUSE ON NEEDLESS STREET
Catriona Ward
In a forest at the end of Needless Street, something lies buried. But
it’s not what you think...
Ted lives in the last house on Needless Street, at the edge of a wild forest,
his only company a disapproving cat and his eleven-year-old daughter,
Lauren. When Ted gets confused he calls them both ‘kitten’. Ted has
always been strange, but he’s becoming stranger. He sets up false online
dating profiles, comes home late with the scents of bone and fear on his
hands. He spends nights in the forest, digging amongst the paper birches.
Then a mysterious woman, who believes Ted had something to do with
her younger sister’s disappearance when they were children, moves into
the abandoned house next door. And when Lauren goes missing,
suspicion turns to terror.
An extraordinary gothic thriller that delivers a dozen twists and turns, The
UK: Viper/Serpent’s Tail, Last House on Needless Street is a thrilling tour de force with an ending
March 2021 (two-book deal) that’s impossible to forget.
US: Nightfire/Tor, October
2021 (three-book deal)
Catriona Ward was born in Washington, DC and grew up in the United
Material: States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She read English at St
MS, 85,000 words Edmund Hall, Oxford and is a graduate of the Creative Writing MA at
the University of East Anglia. Her debut Rawblood (W&N, 2015) won
Rights sold: Best Horror Novel at the 2016 British Fantasy Awards, was shortlisted
Croatia - Sonatina for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award and a WHSmith Fresh
France - Sonatine Talent title. Her second novel, Little Eve (W&N, 2018) won the Shirley
Germany - Festa Verlag Jackson Award 2018, was a Guardian best book of 2018 and won the
Greece - Metaixmio August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel 2019. Catriona is the only
Hungary - Maxim woman to have won the August Derleth Award twice. Her short stories
Italy - Sperling & Kupfer have appeared in numerous anthologies. She lives in London and Devon.
Poland - Wyd. Poznańskie
Russia - Eksmo ‘It's a true nerve-shredder that keeps its mind-blowing secrets to the very
Spain - Alianza end. Haven't read anything this exciting since Gone Girl.’
Turkey - Ithaki Yayinlari – Stephen King
Previous publications: ‘The Last House on Needless Street is absolutely brilliant. This is
Little Eve (2018) extraordinary, high-wire-act horror, audacious as hell. Reading it, I felt as
Rawblood (2015) if I were watching a lunatic run towards the edge of the cliff, certain she
could fly…but when @Catriona Ward takes that leap, she soars. We’re all
going to be talking about this one for a long time.’
– Christopher Golden (Twitter)
19NON FICTION
205 ROWS ALL COUPLES (NEED TO) HAVE
Jo Harrison
A route map for how to have better relationships.
We often have the same rows with our partners over and over again.
This is because there are 5 distinct issues that all couples have got to try
and work out if they are going to have a healthy, functioning
relationship.
Grounded in her experience in psychotherapy, Joanna Harrison asks us
to think about the problems and difficulties we might all be having in
our relationships – and offers some ideas about how to improve things
for the better.
Joanna Harrison is a wife, mum, experienced couple therapist and
former divorce lawyer, all of which have led her to conclude that
UK: Profile Books, Spring relationships are hard work, and that we all need all the help we can get.
2022 She is a senior clinician at Tavistock Relationships, where she has
worked with all sorts of couples from London since her training there
Material: over 15 years ago. She also works in private practice in central London,
Proposal and sample chapter and has developed a particular expertise in working alongside solicitors
MS due June 2021 to support people going through a divorce.
21THE BLAZING WORLD: A History of Revolutionary
England, 1600-1700
Jonathan Healey
The seventeenth century was a revolutionary age for the English. It
started with them suddenly ruled by a Scotsman, and ended in the
shadow of an invasion by the Dutch. Under James I, England suffered
terrorism and witch panics. Under his son Charles, state and society
collapsed into civil war, to be followed by an army coup and regicide.
For a short time England was a republic. There were no boundaries to
politics. In fiery, plague-ridden London, in coffee shops and alehouses,
new ideas were forged that were angry, populist, and almost impossible
for monarchs to control.
But the story of this century is less well known than it should be. The
political narrative of the Stuart Age has long seemed the unattractive
sequel to the more glamorous Tudors. Myths have accumulated around
key figures like cobwebs obscuring an old antique. The Gunpowder Plot
and the Great Fire of London have stuck in the popular mind, but the
Civil War is a half-remembered mystery to many. And yet the
UK: Bloomsbury, 2022 seventeenth century has never seemed more relevant. The British
US: Knopf constitution is currently once again being bent and contorted, and there
is a clash of ideologies reminiscent of when roundhead fought cavalier.
Material: The Blazing World brings the story of this strange, twisting, fascinating
Proposal and sample chapter century to a bigger audience. It shows a society in sparkling detail, using
MS due July 2021 as many unpublished manuscripts as possible. It was a new world of
wealth, creativity, and daring curiosity, but also of greed, pugnacious
arrogance, and colonial violence. A society on fire, but a society
simultaneously forging the future.
Jonathan Healey is a historian of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. He writes history from the bottom up, focusing on ordinary
people – their lives, loves, culture and politics. He is Associate Professor
in Social History at Oxford, the university from which he got his
doctorate in 2008. He lives in London, and can usually be found
brandishing an obscure manuscript at the National Archives. The Blazing
World is his first book.
22THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU HERE: Opportunity in an
Age of Decline
Fiona Hill
There Is Nothing for You Here: Opportunity in an Age of Decline will draw on
Dr. Hill’s deep expertise in the United States and Europe, as well as her
personal experience on both continents, to explain how our current,
polarized moment is the result of long historical trends - from imperial
overreach to postindustrial decline - that have long afflicted Russia and
the United Kingdom, and which now are beginning to affect the United
States. Dr. Hill will describe the origins and growth of deep, geograph-
ically concentrated opportunity gaps, and show how they have fueled
the rise of populism at home and abroad. And she will share insights
from her work in Russia, Europe and the United States to show how
realizing America’s inherent promise - and stabilizing its democracy -
depends on restoring hope and opportunity to all its citizens, not merely
a privileged few.
Fiona Hill is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and
US: Houghton Mifflin
Europe in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She recently served
Harcourt, October 2021
as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European
and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019.
Material:
From 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia
Forthcoming
and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council. She is co-author of
“Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” (Brookings Institution Press, 2015).
Hill has researched and published extensively on issues related to Russia,
the Caucasus, Central Asia, regional conflicts, energy, and strategic
issues. Her book with Brookings Senior Fellow Clifford Gaddy, “The
Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold,”
was published by Brookings Institution Press in December 2003, and
her monograph, “Energy Empire: Oil, Gas and Russia’s Revival,” was
published by the London Foreign Policy Centre in 2004. The first
edition of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” was published by
Brookings Institution Press in December 2013, also with Clifford
Gaddy. Hill holds a master’s in Soviet studies and a doctorate in history
from Harvard University where she was a Frank Knox Fellow. She also
holds a master’s in Russian and modern history from St. Andrews
University in Scotland, and has pursued studies at Moscow’s Maurice
Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages. Hill is a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations.
23THE INSOMNIA DIARIES: How I Learned to Sleep Again
Miranda Levy
From summer 2010 until the start of 2019, Miranda Levy suffered from
severe, crippling insomnia. For a woman who seemed to have
everything going for her – a high-powered career running a magazine
alongside a busy family life – finding a cure was a must. And yet, there
wasn’t one. No GP, psychiatrist, hypnotist, acupuncturist, therapist or
sleep clinic could find a solution, and the days and months became years
of sleepless torture. In January 2019, things started to improve, and
Miranda began talking about what had happened to her. She began a
blog, which turned into a column for a national newspaper: friends and
readers alike soon started sharing their own battle stories with her (and
there were many).
The science of sleep is all the rage, but sometimes there isn’t an easy
answer – it’s about adapting, and finding a way to manage nonetheless.
UK: Aster (Octopus), Through her personal journey and in her recent work as a journalist,
June 2021 Miranda has tried, tested and written about every ‘remedy’ for insomnia
there is, and explores related issues such prescription pill dependency
Material: and residential rehab. Drawing on expert advice and rigorous research as
MS, 219pp well as her own experiences, she weaves a wealth of scientific and
practical information into her story, as she encounters them.
This is a darkly funny but ultimately hopeful story of one woman’s
struggle against chronic insomnia, a story of survival which seeks to bust
the myth that there’s a cure for everything in a world.
Miranda Levy is a journalist and author of more than 25 years’
experience. Since gaining her UCL English degree and postgrad
journalism diploma from City University, she has worked on magazines
including Cosmopolitan and New Woman. Miranda then hacked it at
the Daily Mail and Sunday Mirror before heading back to glossies and the
launches of Glamour and Grazia. She had two babies, wrote the Rough
Guide to Babies in 2006, and became editor of Mother & Baby, where she
was twice nominated for a British Society of Magazine Editors award.
Now a freelance writer, Miranda covers many topics, but particularly
health and sleep – mainly for the Daily Telegraph, where she has written a
weekly online column called ‘The Insomnia Diaries’. Miranda has been
published in titles as diverse as the Spectator, the Jewish Chronicle and
the New York Post.
24THE INVENTION OF THE WEST
Naoise Mac Sweeney
The West is not a thing or a place, but an idea. As far as ideas go, it is an
exceptionally powerful one - it has shaped the lives of millions,
structured the world around us, and changed the course of history - but
it is an idea nonetheless. The Invention of the West presents a radical new
history of the West as a concept, challenging established myths about its
origins and development, and looking forward into its future.
Naoise questions the legitimacy of the West through the lives of nine
individuals throughout history, starting with Herodotus and ending with
Carrie Lam, the current Chief Executive of Hong Kong. The Invention of
the West offers a truly global retelling of history, drawing on lives and
sources that span from Germany to the USA, and from Ancient Greece
to Baghdad.
World English: W H Allen Born in London to Chinese and Irish parents, Naoíse Mac Sweeney
(Ebury), August 2022 worked in international development and as a model before pursuing an
academic career. She is currently Professor of Classical Archaeology at
Material: the University of Vienna, having previously taught for ten years at the
Proposal and sample chapter, University of Leicester. She has also held positions at Cambridge and
with two further chapters Harvard, and received her PhD in classics from Cambridge University in
available Spring 2021 2007. Her last book, Troy: Myth, City, Icon, was published by Bloomsbury
Academic in 2018 and was shortlisted for a PROSE award. The Invention
of the West is her first mainstream publication.
25ONE MEDICINE: How Kissing a Frog Can Save Your Life
Dr Matt Morgan
The need to adapt in order to survive on our brutal earth started at the
dawn of life 4.8 billion years ago. Whilst 6 million years of human
evolution have moulded us to cope with the challenges of everyday life,
when people become critically ill, doctors such as Dr Matt Morgan are
forced to explore radically different strategies to try and ensure their
patients’ survival. As an intensive care consultant, Morgan treats the
sickest patients, whose organs are failing and lives fading. Some patients
can be saved, thanks to the sophisticated technology and drugs that we
have developed. However, these technologies were only made possible
by looking at how animal species have adapted to life’s challenges.
Morgan will take readers on a journey to discover how some of the
greatest advances in human medicine were achieved through
understanding how animals survive. He will explore how all kinds of
creatures breathe, eat, sleep, reproduce and die. Real cases of patients
UK: Simon & Schuster, with critical illness will be used to illustrate the links between these ani-
Spring 2022 mal discoveries and the diagnoses, drugs and technologies used in hu-
man medicine.
Material:
Proposal
MS due October 2021 Dr Matt Morgan is a British intensive care doctor with a wealth of
clinical, research and education experience. He has postgraduate
qualifications in intensive care medicine, has worked in some of the
Previous publications:
largest UK and Australasian hospitals and has a background in military
Critical (2019)
medicine. He has won prizes for his research interests and has complet-
ed a PhD using artificial intelligence to help solve complex medical
Previous publishers:
problems. He is passionate about medical education and public engage-
China - Yilin Press
ment, has written multiple scientific articles and contributed to a num-
Korea - Idea Shelf
ber of books. He lives in Cardiff with his family. Matt’s first
Poland - Insignis book Critical, a compelling and insightful look into the world of inten-
Portugal - 20/20 sive care medicine, was sold to Simon & Schuster UK in a six-figure,
Russia - Eksmo two-book deal, and was published in May 2019.
Praise for Critical
‘A very special book filled with stories of survival, hope and loss.’
– Adam Kay, author of the bestselling book This is Going to
Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
26WASHED
Norman Ohler
Washed is the secret story of the latter half of the 20th century,
from the author of global bestseller Blitzed.
In 1943, World War II is entering its decisive phase. The Wehrmacht are
retreating on all fronts, and their methamphetamine-stimulated victories
are already history. It is now that a new class of drugs, the hallucinogens,
enters the global stage. Their story – how they will shape the immediate
post-war era with effects lasting until the present day – is untold.
In this sweeping narrative following Arthur Giuliani, an American vice
cop wading through the physical and moral wreckage of 1945 Berlin,
Norman Ohler shows us how the Americans adopted and further
advanced Nazi experiments and interrogation techniques to stop the
spread of communism after World War II. Where the Nazis had
experimented on concentration camp inmates, the Americans used
prison inmates; in place of the Nazi’s mescaline, they used a drug newly
discovered in Switzerland called LSD. They didn’t share Nazi ideology,
Germany: Kiepenheuer & but the objective was similar: to control the human mind and become
Witsch master of another.
US: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt But the U.S. establishment’s fascination with drugs as a means to further
UK: Atlantic Books American power globally is only one side of this story. WASHED also
uncovers how Giuliani became the vector by which the Nazi’s punitive
Material: Proposal drug ideology as applied to their own citizens escaped the ruins of the
MS due early 2022 Third Reich. Ohler’s extensive archival research and trademark noirish
style reveal in thrilling detail the true origins of the War on Drugs, and
Rights sold: how this ideology has warped Western politics and societies in ways still
Hungary - Libri with us today.
Italy - Rizzoli
Norman Ohler is an award-winning novelist. His fiction includes Die
Previous publishers:
Quotenmaschine, the first hypertext-novel worldwide, published in
China - Social Sciences
1995, Mitte, and Stadt des Goldes (Ponte City in the English translation).
Academic Press
His first non-fiction book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany is an
Czech Rep - Dobrovsky s.r.o.
international bestseller and currently translated into over 25 languages.
Finland - Like Kustannus His second work of non-fiction, Harro und Libertas, was published in
France - Payot & Rivages Germany in September 2019, and was published in English as The
Netherlands - Luitingh & Bohemians by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US) and The Infiltrators by
Sijthoff Atlantic Books (UK) in 2020. Ohler also works in film, and
Portugal - 20/20 co-wrote Palermo Shooting with Wim Wenders as well as the
Slovenia - Zalozba Mladinska script Kilo with Dennis Hopper. He lives in Berlin with his two children.
Knjiga
Spain - Critica
Sweden - Historiska Media
Turkey - Iletisim Yayincilik
27NOSTALGIA: The Backwards Story of a Very British
Obsession
Hannah Rose Woods
A tour through six centuries of looking back to the past, from the EU
Referendum to the English Reformation.
From politicians who draw on nostalgia for the ‘Blitz spirit’ to
reminiscences of an era when Britannia ruled the waves, England is a
nation obsessed with its past, yearning for the stability and certainty of a
vanished golden age that never quite existed.
Nostalgia, however, has a long history. For more than 500 years
politicians, poets, novelists and social commentators have mourned the
loss of old England, and called for a revival of simpler, better ways of
life. Beginning with an exploration of nostalgia in the 21st century,
Hannah Rose Woods delves back in time to uncover the nostalgias of
the past.
UK: Ebury, Spring 2022
Hannah Rose Woods is a cultural historian who is particularly
Material: interested in the history of people’s emotional lives. She has a PhD from
Proposal and sample chapter the University of Cambridge, where she taught modern British history,
MS due August 2021 and in 2016 captained her college’s team to victory on University
Challenge. She has written on history, politics and culture for the New
Statesman, the Guardian, Standpoint and Elle magazine, and has appeared
as a contributor on Dan Snow’s History Hit Podcast, BBC Radio 5 Live
and Radio 4. She lives in London and Nottinghamshire.
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