Translation Rights Summer 2021
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I am delighted to be representing translation rights in titles for the following clients: A FOR AUTHORS LITERARY AGENCY All Languages BARBICAN PRESS All Languages BRADT All Languages EYE BOOKS All Languages LIGHTNING BOOKS All languages except Dutch, German, French, Italian, Spanish KEANE KATARIA AGENCY in the following languages only: Dutch, Italian, Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hebrew, Nordic Languages – Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic, Polish, Turkish SIVAGURUNATHAN & CHUA World Excluding The Far East STORYLINE LITERARY AGENCY All Languages
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Stone Heart Deep Paul Bassett Davies Agent: Lightening Books With nods to The Wicker Man and Hot Fuzz, Stone Hart Deep is a compelling and claustrophic thriller with a remarkable twist. When investigative journalist Adam Budd's estranged mother dies, he inherits her estate. This includes Stone Heart Deep, a large dilapidated house on a remote Scottish island. He travels to the island to sort out her affairs and sell the house, intending to stay just for a few days, but a tragic accident prolongs his visit and he begins to develop suspicions about some of the islanders. Why does the island's doctor have so much control over the UK: Lightning Books inhabitants? What is stopping Harriet, the lawyer helping him Date: September 2021 with his affairs, from leaving the island when she so clearly Material: AVAILABLE wants to do just that? And why will the landlords of the pub he is staying in not let Adam use the satellite phone to contact the Rights Available: World mainland? excluding Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish (Agence Deborah Druba) Praise for Please Don't Ask for Mercy As Refusal Often Offends ‘Mordantly funny… Poe would have enjoyed it’ Stephen King ‘Echoes of Douglas Adams at his more mischievous. Top marks for originality and subversive humour’ Maxim Jakubowski Paul Bassett Davies worked in experimental theatre before moving to television and radio, where he wrote for some of the biggest names in British comedy.He is a former creative director of the London Comedy Writers Festival. 4
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Line Niall Bourke Agent: Brian Langan / Storyline Literary Agency ‘Line is a modern parable of the most ambitious kind. A Grapes of Wrath for the age of digital capitalism. Niall Bourke writes with passionate urgency and skilful clarity. An impressive, boundary challenging novel.’ – Rónán Hession ‘An enthralling work of high imagination and storytelling flair’ – Donal Ryan An experimental work of speculative fiction, Line is the elegant answer to maintaining a new world order. Following the financial collapse of Europe and North America and the powerful LINE economic dominance of an Afro-Hispanic alliance built on data- finance, a mass migration to the tropical regions which threatens the balance of these new economies. NIALL BOURKE Line is the story of Willard who, along with his mother and girlfriend Nyla, spend their days in a seemingly endless line (or UK: Tramp Press queue). Survival is dictated by the ultimate imperative: obey the Date: April 2021 rules, or you will lose your place. Everything changes the day Extent: 188pp Willard’s mother dies and he learns an uncomfortable truth Material: Available about the world he thought he knew. He and Nyla set out on a journey that will change their lives for ever. Rights Available: World ex UK & Ireland In its Beckettian sparseness, Line pushes the boundaries of contemporary fiction. At once self-contained and deeply moving, this stunning novel is concerned with contemporary issues such as migration and the refugee crisis, big data and the erosion of democracy, climate change, colonialism, conformity and fanaticism. Niall Bourke’s short stories have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the Costa Short Story Award, the Hennessey New Irish Writing Award and the ASOL Tom-Gallon Trust Award. Originally from County Kilkenny, Niall now lives in London where he teaches English 5
Helen Edwards Rights Agency She’s Mine A A Chaudhuri Agent: Annette Crossland / A for Authors Literary Agency Her missing daughter was just the start of the nightmare. Twenty years ago, Christine Donovan took a call she should have ignored while shopping. In those few seconds while her back was turned, her toddler, Heidi, was kidnapped. She’s never been seen again. Despite having two other children with husband Greg, Christine remains guilt-stricken that her neglect caused her child to be stolen, while haunted by a secret that consumes her. Just as she takes measures to finally heal, a note is posted through her door, with the words she has always longed to hear: Heidi isn’t dead. Christine might finally get the answers she craves - but what she doesn’t know is that finding her daughter will uncover dark UK: Hera Books secrets close to home. Date: August 2021 Extent: In seeking the truth, Christine might destroy everything that she Material: Available loves … so how far is she willing to go to find Heidi? Rights Available: World ex UK & Ireland With a truly jaw-dropping end twist, She’s Mine is a dark, scandalous, and gripping read from a major new talent in psychological thriller writing. For fans of Harriet Tyce, C.L. Taylor and Apple Tree Yard. A.A. Chaudhuri is a former city lawyer and highly ranked British Junior Tennis player. She is the author of two pacy legal thrillers, The Scribe, and The Abduction, both featuring lawyer Maddy Kramer and DCI Jake Carver. 6
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Summer in Andalucia Lucy Coleman Agent: Sara Keane / Keane Kataria Food and love combine in a sun-baked, life- affirming, total escape to beautiful Andalucía. Lainey Summers feels blessed to have her dream job writing for a renowned food magazine. And the day she goes to interview top chef Rick Oliver at his new restaurant in London’s popular Piccadilly is the start of an unexpected journey. When Rick is offered the opportunity to jet off to a monastery in Andalucía, to film a cookery competition for Spanish TV, Lainey goes too, to cover the story. Spending a month filming in the stunning Spanish countryside, soaking up the sights, sounds, smells and of course the cuisine, Lainey and Rick start to enjoy each other’s company. But their UK: Boldwood Books time together flies by too quickly, and before they know it, Rick Date: April 2021 and Lainey have to face going their separate ways. Extent: 335pp With both their worlds shifting beneath them, the call of Previous Rights sold: Andalucía and the call of happiness grows ever stronger. But with Italian (Newton Compton Editori) Czech (Euromedia Group) everything at stake, will they be able to take the chance of a Croatian (Stilus Knjiga) Hungarian happy-ever-after...? (Central Kaido) , Russian (Eksmo) Rights Available: ‘Beautifully written, comforting and utterly uplifting, Lucy Denmark Estonia Coleman’s stories are the perfect tonic when life is a little Finland. Iceland Israel Italy grey.' Holly Martin, bestselling author of The Gift of Happiness Latvia Lithuania Netherlands Norway Poland Sweden Lucy Coleman is a #1 bestselling author of feelgood women’s Turkey fiction. In 2013 she won the UK Festival of Romance: Innovation in Romantic Fiction award. She also writes as Linn B. Halton. Rest of the World with Keane Kataria 7
Helen Edwards Rights Agency The Villa of Dreams Lucy Coleman Agent: Sara Keane / Keane Kataria Can dreams come true in sun-drenched Portugal? When Seren Maddison left behind rainy Britain to follow her dreams and live and work in vibrant, sunny Lisbon she knew that it would be her forever home. International artist Reid Henderson has homes in Lisbon and London. Following his painful divorce, his dream is to turn his luxurious home into an art school and gallery. When Seren and Reid first meet there is an instant attraction, but they are both people who have been hurt, and each have dreams that are so far apart, they aren’t even on the same page. Can they enjoy one summer of happiness together, to cherish for the rest of their lives? Or is their destiny to chart a path into the future, in a home where dreams can come true? UK: Boldwood Books Seren and Reid may be about to discover that love is as much Date: December 2021 about what you are prepared to give up, as what you are Extent: 480pp prepared to keep hold of. Previous Rights sold: Italian (Newton Compton Editori) Lucy Coleman is a #1 bestselling author of feelgood women’s Czech (Euromedia Group) fiction. In 2013 she won the UK Festival of Romance: Innovation Croatian (Stilus Knjiga) Hungarian in Romantic Fiction award. She also writes as Linn B. Halton. (Central Kaido) , Russian (Eksmo) Rights Available: Denmark. Estonia Finland. Iceland Israel Italy Latvia Lithuania Netherlands Norway Poland Sweden Turkey Rest of the World with Keane Kataria 8
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Charity Madeleine Dewhurst Agent: Lightning Books ‘In Charity, Dewhurst examines patterns of guilt, recognition, shame and agency. A taut, fraught, stylish and important novel about notions of the culpable and the complicit, drawing upon the facts and fictions of an oft- neglected moment in history’ Eley Williams Edith, an elderly widow with a large house in an Islington garden square, needs a carer. Lauren, a nail technician born in the East End, needs somewhere to live. A rent-free room in lieu of pay seems the obvious solution, even though the pair have nothing in common. Or do they? Why is Lauren so fascinated by Edith’s childhood in colonial Kenya? Is Paul, the handsome lodger in the basement, the honest broker he appears? And how does Charity, a Kenyan girl brutally tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion, fit into the equation? UK: Eye Books Date: April 2021 Capturing the spirited interplay between two women divided by Extent: 75,000 words class, generation and a deeper gulf from the past, and offering Material: available vivid flashbacks to 1950s East Africa, Madeline Dewhurst’s Rights Available: World captivating debut spins a web of secrets and deceit – where it’s excluding Dutch, French, not always obvious who is the spider and who is the fly. German, Italian, Spanish (Agence Deborah Druba) Madeline Dewhurst studied English at Queen’s University Belfast and went on to complete an MA in Research and a PhD at Queen Mary, University of London. She also has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway. She is an academic in English and Creative Writing at the Open University. Her previous writing includes fiction, journalism and drama. Charity, which was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award, is her first novel. 9
Helen Edwards Rights Agency The End of the World is Flat Simon Edge Agent: Lightning Books A satirical comedy featuring Christopher Columbus, a tech billionaire, and a global delusion. Mel Winterbourne is the founder of a small, single-issue charity in the obscure field of mapmaking. Its success in achieving modest aims attracts the attention of handsome tech billionaire Joey Talavera, who evicts Mel and hijacks her charity for his own ends: to convince the world that the earth is flat. Although his chances of doing so seem slim, Flat Earthery is an idea whose time has come. With the historical reputation of Christopher Columbus in free- fall, old-style 'globularism' becomes heretical for a new generation of angry, anti-Establishment free-thinkers. Teachers, politicians, and celebrities face ruin if they refuse to sign up to the new orthodoxy. For Mel, something must be done. Teaming up with a pariah tabloid journalist and a faded writer of gross-out movie UK: Lighting Books Date: August 2021 comedies, she sets out to challenge Talavera and his deranged Material: available beliefs. Will history and the billionaire's own family origins be Rights Available: World their unexpected ally? excluding Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish Using his trademark mix of history and satire to poke fun at (Agence Deborah Druba) modern foibles, Simon Edge is at his razor-sharp best in a caper that may be much more relevant than you think. ‘I loved this smart and divinely wry book…a terrific eye and ear is at work here’ Eleanor Lipman of Anyone for Edmund Simon Edge read philosophy at Cambridge University. He was editor of the pioneering London paper Capital Gay before becoming writing for the Evening Standard and the Daily Express. He has an MA in Creative Writing from City University, London He is the author of four novels: The Hopkins Conundrum, The Hurtle of Hell, A Right Royal Face-Off and Anyone for Edmund?. 10
Helen Edwards Rights Agency We Are Animals Tim Ewins Agent: Lightning Books A quirky, utterly charming and heart-warming tale of lost love, unlikely friendships and the certainty of fate (or lack thereof). A cow looks out to sea, dreaming of a life that involves grass. Jan is also looking out to sea. He’s in Goa, dreaming of the passport-thief who stole his heart (and his passport) forty-six years ago. Back then, fate kept bringing them together, but lately it seems to have given up. Jan has not. In his long search he has accidentally held a whole town at imaginary gunpoint in Soviet Russia, stalked the proprietors of an international illegal lamp-trafficking scam and done his very best to avoid any kind of work involving the packing of fish. Now he thinks if he just waits, if he just does nothing at all, maybe fate will find it easier to reunite them. UK: Lightning Books Date: July 2021 Extent: His story spans fifty-four years, ten countries, two imperfect Material: available criminals (and one rather perfect one), twenty-two different Rights Available: World animals and an annoying teenager. But maybe an annoying excluding Dutch, French, teenager is exactly what Jan needs to help him find the missing German, Italian, Spanish thief? (Agence Deborah Druba) For the first time in her life the cow noticed the sun setting, and it was glorious. Tim Ewins had an eight-year stand-up career alongside his accidental career in finance, before turning to writing fiction. This is his first novel. 11
The French House Helen Fripp Agent: Kiran Kataria / Keane Kataria A novel of romance and adventure, inspired by the life of a remarkable young widow, Barbe-Nicole Cliquot, and the Veuve Cliquot champagne she made famous. Reims, 1796: A few years after the Revolution, ambitious young vintner Francois Cliquot married headstrong, independent Barbe- Nicole Ponsardin. But their happiness is cut short when Barbe- Nicole is left a widow by Francois’ sudden death. Instead of selling up and retiring into modest widowhood; she defies convention by throwing herself into the masculine world of winemaking. Her aim: to make her Veuve Cliquot the most sought- after champagne in Europe. But with Napoleonic France at war, a trade blockade and fierce opposition to a woman running a business, it is a constant struggle. Each fresh disaster brings her closer to ruin, but she meets them all with courage and ingenuity. UK: Bookouture Date: March 2021 Then in 1811 a comet crosses the sky, bringing with it the best Extent: 80,000 words grape harvest in decades. Barbe-Nicole fights to get her Year of Material: available the Comet Champagne through the blockades—but to no avail. Rights sold: Greek / In 1814 Napoleon’s army is routed by the Russians and France is Romanian / Russian occupied. But this seeming disaster opens the door to the court of the Tsar for Barbe- Nicole. Before long, the wealthy Russian Rights Available: elite is clamouring for Veuve Cliquot champagne—and the world Denmark Estonia Finland. Iceland will follow. Israel Italy Latvia Lithuania Netherlands Norway Poland Sweden Turkey Helen Fripp has a BA in French and an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Sp University. Her fiction focuses on women in the pst Rest of the World with who have achieved greens against the odds. She lives in Bath and Keane Kataria works in the PR industry.
Cold East Gabija Grušaité Agent: Sivagurunathan & Chua Post-Soviet hipsters tired of dancing on the surface of life, plunge into the dark, dangerous waters of the world’s largest corruption scandal (1MDB), murder and its global fallout. SHORTLISTED FOR THE EU PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2019 Twenty-something author and minor media influencer Stasys Šaltoka – or Stanley Colder to his adoring IG followers – has hit an existential wall. Abandoning his clichéd and stifling New York city life, he buys a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia in search of life-changing experiences. A chance meeting with an enigmatic Russian leads Stasys to a documentary project – the murder of a mysterious Mongolian Malaysia: Clarity Books model that implicates a prime minister and his jewel-hoarding Date: wife. Unravelling the truth takes Stasys deeper through the Extent: 323 pages murky swamp of extreme corruption, death, Islamophobia and Material: available media manipulation. Rights Available: Will he ever figure out the meaning of life or find a decent World Excluding Far East espresso? Rights sold: Lithuania, Gabija Grušaité is an author and curator; Cold East is her Poland, Russia second novel. A graduate of Anthropology & Media from Goldsmiths College, UK, Gabija’s creative pursuit is defined by the relentless search of new horizons through travel. In 2009, she settled in Penang, Malaysia where she cofounded an independent, contemporary art centre – Hin Bus Depot – where she was curator-in-chief. She currently lives in Vilnius, Lithuania with her two Malaysian dogs, Gorgeous and Hazelnut. Kipras Šumskas has translated movies, magazines, several books and far too many legal documents. In his spare time, he teaches Creative Thinking to teenagers and kids in informal education projects.
The Darlings Angela Jackson Agent: Lightning Books The daring new novel from the author of The Emergence of Judy Taylor When Mark Darling is fifteen years old, he is the golden boy, captain of the school football team, admired by all who know him. Until he kills his best friend in a freak accident. He spends the next decade drifting between the therapy couch and dead-end pursuits. Then along comes Sadie. A mender by nature, she tries her best to fix him, and has enough energy to carry them both through the next few years. One evening, Mark bumps into an old schoolfriend, Ruby. She saw the accident first hand. He is pulled towards her by a force stronger than logic: the universal need to reconcile one’s childhood wounds. This is his chance to, once again, feel the UK: Lightning Books enveloping warmth of unconditional love. But can he leave behind Date: August 2021 the woman who rescued him from the pit of despair, the wife he Extent: 80,000 words loves? His unborn child? Material: available This is a story about how childhood experience can profoundly impact how we behave as adults. It’s a story about betrayal, Rights Available: World infidelity and how we often blinker ourselves to see a version of excluding Dutch, French, the truth that is more palatable to us. German, Italian, Spanish (Agence Deborah Druba)
Helen Edwards Rights Agency No Honour Awais Khan Agent: Annette Crossland / A for Authors Agency A young woman defies convention in a small Pakistani village, with devastating results for her and her family. A stunning, immense beautiful novel about courage, family and the meaning of love, when everything seems lost… In sixteen-year-old Abida’s small Pakistani village, there are age- old rules to live by, and her family’s honour to protect. And, yet, her spirit is defiant and she yearns to make a home with the man she loves. When the unthinkable happens, Abida faces the same fate as other young girls who have chosen unacceptable alliances – certain, public death. Fired by a fierce determination to resist everything she knows to be wrong about the society into which she was born, and aided by her devoted father, Jamil, who puts his own life on the line to help her, she escapes to Lahore and then disappears. UK: Orenda Books Date: August 2021 Jamal goes to Lahore in search of Abida – a city where the Extent: 75,000 words prejudices that dominate their village take on a new and Material: AVAILABLE horrifying form – and father and daughter are caught in a world Rights Available: All from which they may never escape. Languages Moving from the depths of rural Pakistan, riddled with poverty and religious fervour, to the dangerous streets of over-populated Lahore, No Honour is a story of family, of the indomitable spirit of love in its many forms … a story of courage and resilience, when all seems lost, and the inextinguishable fire that lights one young woman’s battle for change Awais Khan a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Durham University. He has studied creative writing with Faber Academy. His debut novel, In the Company of Strangers, was published to much critical acclaim. He lives in Lahore. 15
912 Batu Road Viji Krishnamoorthy Agent: Sivagurunathan & Chua A vibrant and sweeping novel set in Kuala Lumpur that weaves the stories of two families across the generations and a lasting friendship forged through the trauma of the Japanese Occupation. 1940: The tranquil lives of the Iyer and the Tan families are shattered with the Japanese invasion of Malaya, and a devastating betrayal forces a treacherous game of resistance and survival that unites the two families in friendship. 2008: Their descendants, Geeta and Ken, have fallen deeply in love, but Geeta’s father will never allow her to marry outside their Brahmin community so for now their romance is a secret. As this modern generation navigates work, love and relationships, their affair challenges traditional beliefs and threatens to destroy an age old friendship. Malaysia: Clarity Books Can past betrayals be forgiven and will the new generation find Date: the strength to move beyond their families’ long-buried pain? Extent: 80,000 words Material: available Viji Krishnamoorthy was born in Ipoh, Perak to a Tamil father and Hokkien Chinese mother. She spent her early school years in Kuala Lumpur and then in Madras (as it was then known), before Rights Available: going to University in the UK. She has worked as a freelance World Excluding Far East writer for several magazines and this is her debut novel. Viji is happily married with two children and lives in Kuala Lumpur, but enjoys spending time in London.
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Spirit Nights Esterine Kire Agent: Martin Goodman / Barbican Press ‘Tiger has eaten the sun!’ screams Tola the seeress when darkness suddenly descends at midday, and the great spiritual struggle begins to restore the light. An ancient prophecy is fulfilled when darkness envelops a number of villages for days on end. The only thing they know is that a terrible taboo has been violated in the spirit world. Only by crossing the borders between the natural world and the spirit world, and acting with wisdom and courage can they get the light back, but who will dare to do that? Accounts of sudden darkness descending on the land exist in at least two tribal histories of the Naga people, the Rengma and the Chang. The story of Spirit Nights is inspired by a story of darkness UK: Barbican Press Editor: Martin Goodman narrated by the Chang Naga tribe. Names and incidents are Date: TBC borrowed from the original tale, but it follows the path of fiction Material: available to achieve its telling. Rights Available: All languages Easterine Kire is a poet and author, and has won Hindu Writer of the Year in India, and the Catalan PEN International Free Voice Award, 2013. Originally from Nagaland in north-east India, she now lives in Norway. Prof Emeritus Paul Pimomo for Bitter Wormwood: ‘Easterine Kire is the keeper of her people's memory, their griot. She is a master of the unadorned language that moves because of the power of its evocative simplicity.' 17
Helen Edwards Rights Agency The Atomics Paul Maunder Agent: Lightning Books A gothic story of madness, revenge and Uranium-235. You cannot run away from what haunts you. Midsummer, 1968. When Frank Banner and his wife Gail move to the Suffolk coast to work at a newly built nuclear power station, they are hoping to leave violence and pain behind them. Gail wants a baby but Frank is only concerned with spending time in the gleaming reactor core of the Seton One power station. Their new neighbours are also ‘Atomics’ – part of the power station community. But Frank takes a dislike to the boorish, predatory Maynard. And when the other man begins to pursue a young woman who works in the power station’s medical centre, Frank decides to intervene. UK: Lightning Books As the sun beats relentlessly upon this bleak landscape, his Date: May 2021 demons return. A vicious and merciless voice tells him he has an Material: available obligation to protect the young woman and Frank knows just how to do it. Radiation will make him stronger, radiation will turn him Rights Available: World into a hero… excluding Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish (Agence Deborah Druba) Paul Maunder is an author and journalist. His 2018 memoir The Wind at my Back explores the connections between landscape, creativity and the writing process. He was awarded a Faber bursary for his fiction and has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, where he studied with the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion. He regularly publishes features and fiction in cycling magazines Peloton and Rouleur. 18
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Fallen Mel O’Doherty Agent: Brian Langan / Storyline Literary Agency A stark and beautifully written debut novel about decades of secrecy and scandal and the devastating impact on a family. ‘A powerful, engrossing and deeply moving novel. I loved it’ Roddy Doyle 'A hugely powerful novel full of heart, empathy and quiet passion.' Joseph O’Connor Michael Connolly had never believed his mother. When he was a child in the 1970s, she’d told him and his father about all the things that happened to her in that place. All that the nuns had done. The doctors encouraged Elaine to talk, and talk she did. She even tried to tell the public. She wrote letters to the newspapers. She picketed Mass with a sign that read: “They killed my baby in Bessborough.” The good, pious parishioners silenced her. She was delusional, the UK: Bluemoose Books doctors said. Her husband did not post her letters. Her son did Date: June 2021 Material: AVAILABLE not believe her. Then, when Michael was twelve, she took her own life. Rights Available: Three decades later, with his own life adrift, caught in the guilt he All Languages and his father had lived with since that time, Michael sat watching the news on TV, and realised Elaine had been telling the truth. ‘Dark but not bleak — this is also a tale of coping and resilience.’ Irish Independent Culture Guide 2021 Mel O’Doherty lives in Douglas, Cork, and teaches English and History. He was shortlisted for a Francis MacManus Short Story Award in 2019. Fallen is his first novel. He is currently writing a second novel. 19
Helen Edwards Rights Agency All the Beautiful Liars Sylvia Petter Agent: Lightning Books ‘A stylistically daring, hurricane-paced and genuinely impressive feat of the imagination’ – Billy O’Callaghan As a child in Australia in the Fifties, Katrina Klain is taunted in the playground as a Nazi, long before she knows what the word means. Her German mother and her Austrian father seem to be ordinary people who simply ended up on the wrong side of history, but Katrina yearns to know more about her origins. Leaving the New World behind as soon as she can, she heads to Vienna, where she imagines her Germanic name will no longer be a burden, armed with what turns out to be an inexhaustible list of questions. Is the sleazy uncle exiled to Spain a crook or a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance? Why does her father insist his brother is dead? And is her cousin in East Germany really a Stasi agent? Decades later, during a long flight back to Australia, Katrina attempts to reassemble the pieces of the puzzle she has spent UK: Lightning Books so long researching. In her dream-like version of an in-flight Date: January 2021 movie, a mysterious other-worldly guide seems to know – and Extent: have control over – her own future. Material: available Rights Available: World Told in a thrillingly inventive narrative style, Sylvia Petter’s excluding Dutch, French, debut novel is a powerful, pacy tale about making peace with German, Italian, Spanish the past, which also paints a richly evocative picture of Central (Agence Deborah Druba) Europe in the early decades after the war. Sylvia Petter was born in Vienna but grew up in Australia, which makes her Austr(al)ian. She has published three story collections, and has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of New South Wales. After living for 25 years in the Geneva area, where she was a founding member of the Geneva Writers’ Group, she now lives in Vienna once more. 20
Helen Edwards Rights Agency The Spanish House Cherry Radford Agent: Kiran Kataria / Keane Kataria One bizarre to-do list to earn her inheritance. One Spanish Summer. One huge family secret. Juliana makes a modest living as an ‘ethnic’ TV/film extra–even though the only connections with her Spanish heritage are her cacti, Spanish classes, and some confused memories of a Spanish mother she hasn’t seen since she was seven. When her beloved Uncle Arturo offers her the chance to discover her roots while housesitting his coastal home in a quiet corner of Andalusia, Juliana can’t believe her luck. Especially when he reveals that the house will be hers if she fulfils ten life- enhancing ‘Conditions’ within 90 days. Redecoration of the house and a visit to the old film studio where her mother used to sew costumes seem ridiculously simple tasks for such a wonderful reward. But little does Juliana realise that there are family secrets and inherited rivalries UK: Aria / Head of Zeus awaiting her in sunny Spain, and the condition that she has to ‘get Date: August 2021 on with the neighbours’ – who include a ruggedly handsome but Extent: 80,000 words moody artist – may be harder than she thinks. Material: available The perfect escapist read for fans of Rosanna Ley, Jo Thomas and Rights Available: Sue Moorcroft. Denmark Estonia Finland. Iceland Cherry Radford writes contemporary romantic fiction with Israel Italy gorgeous Spanish settings. She inherited her love for all things Latvia Lithuania Netherlands Norway Spanish from her Spanish mother, and now lives mainly in Almeria Poland Sweden in south- east Spain. The Spanish House is the first in a three- Turkey book contract with Aria Fiction. Rest of the World with Keane Kataria 21
Helen Edwards Rights Agency The Rapunzel Act Abi Silver Agent: Lightning Books Can you find justice…when the world is watching? When breakfast TV host and nation’s darling, Rosie Harper, is found brutally murdered at home, suspicion falls on her spouse, formerly international football star, Danny ‘walks on water’ Mallard, now living out of the public eye as trans woman, Debbie. Not only must Debbie challenge the hard evidence against her, including her blood-drenched glove at the scene of the crime, she must also contend with the nation’s prejudices, as the trial is broadcast live, turning it into a public spectacle. For someone trying to live their life without judgment, it might just be too much to bear. Legal duo Judith Burton and Constance Lamb are subjected to unyielding scrutiny as they strive to defend their most famous client yet. UK: Lightning Books The fourth thought-provoking courtroom drama from the Date: April 2021 Extent: acclaimed author of the Burton & Lamb series. Material: available Rights Available: World excluding Dutch, French, Abi Silver is a lawyer by profession. She lives in Hertfordshire German, Italian, Spanish with her husband and three sons. Her first courtroom thriller (Agence Deborah Druba) featuring the legal duo Judith Burton and Constance Lamb, The Pinocchio Brief, was published by Lightning Books in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. The Aladdin Trial, featuring the same legal team, was published in 2018, followed by The Cinderella Plan in 2019. 22
Helen Edwards Rights Agency The Silk Pavilion Sarah Walton Agent: Martin Goodman / Barbican Press A steamy upmarket psychological thriller set in Deià on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Lucy’s on assignment. The wild reclusive writer awaits her arrival in his Mallorcan home. She wants the story of his life. He wants her to become part of it. Villa Rosa hides a dark secret. Beneath Deià’s sunny olive groves are the bodies of a generation. Spain’s unearthed shadow entwines with Lucy’s as her own skeletons start to rattle out of her closet. Will she uncover the truth before it’s too late, or replay the pattern of her childhood abuse?' The backstory of the book, those 'bodies of a generation', is the UK: Barbican Press Date: June 2022 Spanish Civil War. The ruling that declared that no acts from the Material: Available war, even rape and murder, can be investigated or guilt attributed, is being challenged in Spain just now. It's also a deep psychological Rights Available: World all thriller, a woman coming to see how her sexual behaviour is languages dictated by childhood trauma. Sarah Walton is an author, writing coach and founder of Soul Writing Intuitive Coaching. Her debut novel, Rufius was long- listed for the Polari First Book Prize.Her second novel, Sophia’s Tale was written using her Soul Writing method and the process of writing it helped write her brain back to health after she sustained a brain injury, which caused language loss and writer’s block. Her third novel, The Silk Pavilion is a psychological thriller due out with Barbican Press in 2022. 23
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Non-Fiction 24
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Three Stripes South The 1000km Trek That Inspired a Women’s Adventure Movement Bex Band Agent: Bradt Guides A life-changing trek along the Israel National Trail from the found Her Wild, the UK’s largest women’s adventure movement. In 2016, desperate for a drastic change, Bex Band decided to walk the length of Israel with her husband: a 1000km trek including a dangerous crossing through the vast Negev desert. She’d never done anything like this before and the experience changed her life, building back her confidence and self-esteem. Three Stripes South tells the story of this transformative adventure – battling heat, exhaustion, self-doubt and prejudice – and the new life Bex built for herself when she got home. Bex Band is an adventurer and conservationist and founder of the Love Her Wild women’s adventure community. Providing support and opportunities, the community has taken over 1000 UK: Bradt women on adventures around the world. Bex has been Date: August 2021 recognised by Business Leader as one of the UK’s top 30 Extent: 192pp inspirational entrepreneurs and was awarded the Next Material: Available Generation Award by Enterprise Nation. For her work advocating women in adventure, she has been shortlisted for a Rights Available: World all languages National Diversity Award and in was given ‘Legacy Maker’ status on the San Miguel Alternative Rich List 25
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Elites Can you Rise to the Top without Losing Your Soul? Douglas Board Agent: Eye Books ‘Douglas appeals to the capacity that each one of us has to use our talents, common sense and hard work to help us climb the hills and mountains of power’ Dr Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town Across the world, key decisions are made by tiny coteries of political and business leaders. With enough talent, elan and hard work, any of us can join them – so we are told. Follow key rules: be transparent; defer to bosses and clients; take responsibility; feedback is everything. Understand these and the world is our oyster. But is it? Decades of working with leaders have shown headhunter, executive coach and former NGO chair Douglas Board that it may not be. Many would-be leaders and senior managers fall into traps which block their rise and undermine their self-esteem. Elites outlines those traps and shows how best to avoid them. Armed with this knowledge, you may want to use it and join the UK: Eye Books top tier. However, it may also make you reconsider. Knowing how Date: March 2021 elites work, do you still want to join them? Or can you find ways Material: Available to change them? Rights Available: World all In this authoritative, ground-breaking guide, Board suggests that languages true fulfilment demands an adventure into the unknown inside ourselves: why do we seek what we seek? Prepared to be surprised. ‘Interesting, profound, serious, subversive, often very funny’ – Financial Times Douglas Board was born in Hong Kong and has degrees from Cambridge and Harvard and worked for the UK Treasury and then as a headhunter. He has also had a distinguished career in public life, serving as treasurer of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and chairing the British Refugee Council. He is currently a senior visiting fellow at the Cass Business School in London. 26
Helen Edwards Rights Agency What on Earth Can Go Wrong? Tales from the Risk Business Richard Fenning Agent: Eye Books ‘A must-read for every student of geopolitics, amateur or academic, professional or private. This beautifully written memoir is much more than that: a roller-coaster ride of risk, full of insights and implied advice, more relevant than ever in today’s uncertain world.’ Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, former British Ambassador to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan After spending three decades advising multinational companies on geopolitics and security crises, Richard Fenning knows all about danger and intrigue. Kidnappings, terrorist attacks, coups d’état, corruption scandals, cyber attacks, earthquakes and hurricanes were all in a day’s work in a career that coincided with the rise of China, the tumult of the Middle East wars, the resurgence of populism and the digital revolution. UK: Eye Books Date: March 2021 Amid chaos and upheaval, he also found humanity and humour. Material: Available Often witty and always insightful, What on Earth Can Go Wrong takes us from the battlefields of Iraq to the back streets of Bogotá, Rights Available: World all from the steamy Niger Delta to the chill of Putin’s Moscow. languages In a remarkable memoir of a life on the frazzled edge of globalisation, Fenning looks back with compassion and insight on the people and places he got to know, while offering some timely thoughts on the relationship between risk and fear in a profoundly volatile world. Richard Fenning spent 14 years as CEO of Control Risks, the global consultancy that specialises in helping businesses out of tight spots in difficult countries. He now works as a leadership coach and is a regular media commentator on world affairs. He lives in Sussex. 27
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Minarets in the Mountains A Journey into Muslim Europe Tharik Hussain Agent: Bradt Guides A fascinating insight into the living legacy of Islam in Europe” – Levison Wood “A richly detailed travelogue by a humane and compassionate pilgrim” – Tim Mackintosh-Smith Muslim Londoner Tharik Hussain sets off with his wife and young daughters around the Western Balkans, home to the largest indigenous Muslim population in Europe, and explores the regions of Eastern Europe where Islam has shaped places and people for more than half a millennium. Encountering blonde-haired, blue-eyed Muslims, visiting mystical Islamic lodges clinging to the side of mountains, and praying in mosques older than the Sistine Chapel, he paints a picture of a UK: Bradt hidden Muslim Europe, a vibrant place with a breath-taking history, Date: July 2021 spellbinding culture and unique identity. Extent: 264pp Material: Available Tharik Hussain is affiliated as a fellow with the Centre for Religion and Heritage and is viewed widely as a specialist on Rights Available: Muslim heritage and culture, especially across the western World all languages hemisphere. Tharik’s previous work has often served to decolonise authorised and popular religious and cultural histories and narratives. He is the author of several travel guides for Lonely Planet, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Thailand. 28
Helen Edwards Rights Agency West with the Light My Life in Nature Brian Jackman Agent: Bradt Guides “Evocative, personal and authoritative, with terrific pace and narrative flow – everything a reader could ask for. Jackman at his very finest” Richard Girling, author and environmental journalist West With the Light sweeps through a long and remarkable life, from wartime evacuation, grammar school, Soho jazz clubs of the ‘50s and the navy to a career in travel journalism, to which the author’s first marriage gave way before he found a new, true and more lasting love that abides to this day in his beloved rural Dorset. Rippling across continents with Jackman’s natural charm and hallmark stylish prose, these recollections include lively first-hand encounters with pioneering wildlife conservationists like George and Joy Adamson, Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Dr Richard Leakey, Gavin Maxwell and Jonathan Scott. UK: Bradt Brian Jackman is an award-winning journalist and author, a Date: August 2021 Extent: 240pp pioneer of ecotourism best known as Britain’s foremost writer Material: Available on African wildlife safaris. Rights Available: World all languages 29
Helen Edwards Rights Agency Tanked Up: A Diver’s Story Ben Thompson Agent: Bradt Guides An exhilarating accent of life as a dive instructor around the world. The colourful and moving story of a boy who realised at an early age that the sea was his calling and followed his dream. By the age of thirty, Ben Thompson was being paid to dive the world’s most exquisite coral reefs. From exploring the far reaches of South East Asia by local yacht to off-roading through sub-Saharan looking for new dives, Ben sees the world through a diver’s mask. Along the way, he dives one of the world’s only vertical wrecks (at a top secret location) just as it ruptures its gas tanks and causes an international incident, is held up at gunpoint by a militia group in the Philippines, rescued by pirates in Indonesia, and visits the Caicos with America’s largest naked diving group. UK: Bradt Ben Thompson is a professional dive instructor who has taught Date: July 2021 hundreds of people from all walks of life, from spaced out travelers Extent: 320pp to the rich and famous and even a professional street fighter Material: Available hiding from the mob. Ben has explored the far reaches of the Indonesian archipelago onboard a pirate ship, dived a unique Rights Available: World all languages vertical wreck in Thailand just as it refloated into the shipping lanes, and travelled in search of pristine reefs along the uncharted Mozambican coast. He lives in St Lucia with his partner,Vic. 30
Helen Edwards Rights Agency helen@helenedwardsright.co.uk Mobile: +44 (0)7917 508454 Office: +44 (0)20 8251 0943 www.helenedwardsrights.co.uk Cover image: The Magdalen Reading by Rogier van der Weyden C15 (The National Gallery) 31
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