RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER renewed for second series

We’re delighted that the much-loved RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER series has been renewed for a second season, with the new eight 45-minute episodes to begin filming in South Africa in April 2024.

Based on Sally Andrew’s hugely popular Tannie Maria series, RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER is centred on Tannie Maria, a food and advice columnist who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation, along with her best friend Jessie. Season two of RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER will take up where the first season left off – following the events of the second book in the series, THE SATANIC MECHANIC.

RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER  is a co-production from Acorn TV, Multichoice and Cape Town-based production company Both Worlds Pictures, in co-operation with Global Screen. The series is produced by Both Worlds Pictures’ founder Thierry Cassuto, in collaboration with Paris-based Paradoxa.

The series stars Maria Doyle Kennedy (OUTLANDER), Tony Kgoroge (INVICTUS) and Kylie Fisher, and the first series was selected for the Berlinale ‘Series Markets Selects’ in February 2022, and began broadcast in South Africa on M-Net in March 2022 to fantastic reviews. The series was nominated for three awards at the 2023 South African Film & Television Awards (Best Supporting Actress in a TV Drama, Best Achievement in Editing in a TV Drama, and Best Achievement in Directing in a TV Drama), Best Writing for a Television Series at the 2023 WGSA Muse Awards, Best Cinematography at the 2023 Venice TV Awards, and was also shortlisted for a Rose d’Or Award. Acorn TV hold distribution rights to the series for the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, while Multichoice holds rights for Africa. Following the pick-up by Japan’s Mystery Channel, the first season has now sold in 94 countries. You can watch the trailer here.

The Tannie Maria book series titles are all bestsellers in South Africa – regularly in the Top 5, with THE MILK TART MURDERS shooting straight to the top of the combined fiction and non-fiction charts on publication in March 2022. It also won the 2023 Nielsen SA Book Award for Fiction.

About Sally Andrew

Sally Andrew divides her time between Muizenberg on the Cape Town coast and a nature reserve near Ladismith in the Klein Karoo, South Africa, where she lives with her artist partner and various wildlife (including a giant eland and a secretive leopard). Sally has published a number of non-fiction books on adult and environmental education.

Her first novel, RECIPES FOR LOVE & MURDER: A Tannie Maria Mystery was a Kirkus Best Book of 2015, A Wall Street Journal Best Mystery Book 2015, The Bookseller Fiction editor’s Choice 2015 and A Good Housekeeping Book of the Month.

Praise for RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER TV show

‘Gentle… the TV series offers the same mix of human drama, gorgeous landscape, local colour and mouth-watering cooking, quietly threaded through with the more serious issues of domestic abuse, racial inequality and the legacies of apartheid… Despite the murders and simmering racial undertones, the show keeps its warm, humorous tone through the quiet, grounded character of Maria, with her empathetic, practical advice – and recipes – in response to the letters she receives.’ – Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times

 ‘A quirky, colourful murder mystery set in the South African outback.’ – Christopher Vourlias, Variety

 ‘Mild comic, romantic and criminal misadventures in a picturesque setting…  a one-of-a-kind heroine.’ – Mile McCahill, Variety

 ‘The highly watchable Maria Doyle Kennedy takes the lead in this very fun and quirky crime series, which is based on the book of the same name by Sally Andrew. Tannie Maria (Doyle Kennedy) is a recipe-creator-turned-advice-columnist who gets caught up in a murder mystery based on one of the letters she receives for her column. Teaming up with an investigative journalist to get to the bottom of the case, the pair clash with local police as they run amok across crime scenes.’ – Jenna Guillaume, Flicks, ‘7 TV shows arriving in September that we’re excited for’

 ‘Though there is some darkness to the series, as well as social seriousness, it’s kept cozy by its very much post-apartheid, classically eccentric community and the sweetness of its characters. There is a bit of flirtation, and unexpressed longing. And there is food – Maria’s effective love advice always includes a recipe – which we see prepared, step by step.’ – Los Angeles Times

 ‘RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER is a delight… There's plenty of humor and wit, and the mystery elements fairly snap along.’ – Janet Mullaney, Telly Visions

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Hannah Lowe wins the 2024 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award

We are delighted to announce that Costa Book Award-winner Hannah Lowe has been awarded the highly prestigious 2024 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award. She received the award, along with Alia Trabucco Zerán, at a reception at the British Library on 29 November.

The award recognises two writers in the early stages of a new book relating to the Americas, and offers the writers a residency at the British Library – with access to the Library’s extensive Americas collection – as well as a £20,000 grant to complete their works. Hannah will also have the chance to appear at future Hay Festival editions with her published work in Wales, Columbia, Mexico and Peru, and the opportunity to work with the Eccles Centre to develop and facilitate activities and events related to her research at the British Library. The award is now in its 13th year, and with previous winners including Olivia Laing, John Burnside and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo.

Polly Russell, Head of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, said ‘We could not be more excited to support Hannah Lowe and Alia Trabucco as the 2024 Eccles-Hay Writer’s Award winners. Both their projects – one focussed on the Chinese population of the Caribbean and the other on Latin American identity – promise to explore untapped British Library Americas collections and to uncover aspects of Latin American and Caribbean culture and history that have been much overlooked. We look forward to welcoming them to the Library and supporting their work as they delve into the Library’s rich holdings.’

Hay Festival International Director, Cristina Fuentes La Roche said: ‘We are delighted to award the grants to two writers that explore shifting identities, belonging and its meanings in today´s world, and that would link up their literary project with the work of amazing writers and researchers from the British Library archives… Hannah Lowe´s [project] looks into the past, more specifically her own family, exploring race, colonial complexities and the legacy of the British Empire. We can´t wait to learn about their explorations and findings at the archives.’

Hannah’s submitted work for the award was a lyrical, hybrid memoir, with the working title of MOY: In Search of Nelsa Lowe. It uses the intimate story of her Chinese Jamaican aunt – a folk healer, amputee, hostess of a famous waterfront restaurant, and ‘madam’ of a portside brothel – as a pathway to exploring the history of the Chinese in Jamaica, women’s sexual labour, and the culture of folk healing.

The judges said ‘We were enthralled by Hannah Lowe’s inventive approach to conjuring Nelsa, her Afro-Chinese Jamaican aunt. Remarkably, Lowe evokes Nelsa through a single portrait photo and along the way excavates other marginalised women whose lives are rarely noted in official archives.’

About Hannah Lowe

Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. Her 2021 poetry collection, THE KIDS, won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2021 after winning the Costa Poetry Award. It was also shortlisted for the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize, was a Poetry Book Society Choice for Autumn 2021 and an Irish Times and Guardian poetry book of the year.

Her first book-length collection, CHICK, won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. Her second full-length collection, CHAN, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016, followed by a pamphlet, THE NEIGHBOURHOOD (Out-Spoken Press) in 2019. Her prose memoir, LONG TIME NO SEE, exploring her relationship with her half-Chinese, half-Jamaican immigrant father, was published by Periscope in 2015.

Praise for THE KIDS

‘This is a playful yet moving collection that will make the reader frown and laugh, sometimes both at once.’ – Mary Jean Chan, The Guardian, ‘The Best Recent Poetry’

‘Lowe’s social conscience, grounded register and frank humanity recall Tony Harrison...’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph

‘Hannah Lowe's brilliant and entertaining book of sonnets, THE KIDS, is one of the most humorous and tender collections of recent times.’ – Sean Hewitt, The Irish Times, ‘Best poetry of 2021’

‘THE KIDS is the real deal. A page turner about the experience of teaching and being taught, it made us want to punch the air with joy... A contemporary book that buzzes with life while re-energising the sonnet that Shakespeare would recognise. All readers will find something of themselves here.’ – Costa Poetry Award Judges Rishi Dastidar, Ian Duhig and Maya Jaggi

‘A book to fall in love with – it’s joyous, it’s warm and it’s completely universal. It’s crafted and skilful but also accessible… I felt the centre of gravity in the room was with THE KIDS because it fulfils everything that the Costa Book of the Year should be. It’s very readable, very accessible, broad appeal, it’s the sort of book that you could hand to anybody because you would know that everyone would get something out of it… It is a book of poetry, it’s a book of sonnets, but Hannah Lowe is in no way constrained by the form of the poetry. The language just speaks very directly to the reader. It’s a very audacious, utterly successful book, I think, because it’s taking a classical art form, that goes back hundreds of years, and making it bang up-to-date, completely contemporary. We all thought it was so fresh and original.’ – Reeta Chakrabarti, chair of Costa Prize judges

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Red Planet Pictures to adapt Will Dean’s Tuva series, with Rose Ayling-Ellis to star

Source: Red Planet Pictures

Red Planet Pictures (known for DEATH IN PARADISE and SANDITON) has acquired the rights to adapt Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson crime novels from Conrad Williams at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency.   Strictly Come Dancing winner Rose Ayling-Ellis (whose acting credits include EASTENDERS and AS YOU LIKE IT) is to star as its redoubtable heroine, Tuva Moodyson.

Moving back to her hometown in the wilds of Scotland, Tuva finds herself working on a small-time local paper, desperate for a scoop.  When a serial killer who has remained dormant for twenty years starts to kill again, Tuva finds herself with a front-page story that could make her career.  If it doesn’t kill her first.

DARK PINES, the first in the Tuva Moodyson series, was published to huge critical acclaim in 2018, shortlisted for Not the Booker prize, and named as a Daily Telegraph ‘Book of the Year’. RED SNOW and BLACK RIVER were both longlisted for ‘Crime Novel of the Year’ at the Theakston Old Peculier Awards in 2020 and 2021 respectively. The latest in the series, WOLF PACK, has been delighting readers and critics alike, with the Observer picking it as their ‘Book of the Month’ and Allison Flood declaring it to be ‘claustrophobically horrifying.’

The  series is being adapted into a six-part returning crime thriller series by screenwriter and award-winning playwright Charlotte Jones. Currently in development under the working title TUVA, it moves the setting of the series from Sweden to the UK. It will be exec-produced by Belinda Campbell and Caroline Skinner for Red Planet Pictures.

Hodder is set to publish ICE TOWN, the sixth book in the Tuva Moodyson series, in October 2024.

About Will Dean

Photo credit: Rosalind Hobley

Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands, living in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying law at the LSE, and working many varied jobs in London, he settled in rural Sweden with his wife. He built a wooden house in a boggy forest clearing and it's from this base that he compulsively reads and writes.

Will’s first standalone novel, THE LAST THING TO BURN, was a word-of-mouth sensation reviewed positively by readers and media alike. It was shortlisted for Thriller Book of the Year at the Fingerprint Awards 2022, Crime Novel of the Year at the Theakston Old Peculier Awards 2022 and the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2022 and was longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award 2022.

Hodder published his third standalone novel, THE LAST PASSENGER, in the UK in May 2023, while Emily Bestler Books (Simon & Schuster) published in the US. He is currently writing his fourth book for both publishers, THE CHAMBER.

Praise for Tuva book series

‘Tuva […] is admirably resilient, full of warmth and humour (as well as having curious gastronomic tastes) and generally manages to identify the murderers who skulk among the strange inhabitants of the region… Her travails may well give sensitive readers nightmares, but that’s a small price to pay for spending time in her exhilarating company.’ – Natasha Cooper, Literary Review

‘Crackles along at a roaring pace, as Dean piles on sinister locals, hideous troll figures and danger in the dripping wet forest…’ – Observer

‘Tuva is a wonderful creation and Dean’s series is not to be missed.’ – Daily Express

‘It's great. You get snow, ice, Swedishness, murder and liquorice!’ – Marian Keyes

‘Atmospheric, creepy and tense. Loved the Twin Peaks vibe. Loved Tuva. More please!’ – C.J. Tudor, author of THE CHALK MAN

‘Scandi Noir meets Gormenghast. Just wonderful. Can’t get enough of Tuva Moodyson…’ – Mark Billingham

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Three more Elizabeth Chadwick novels for Sphere

Sphere have acquired three more historical fiction titles by Elizabeth Chadwick in a World English language deal struck with Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann.

Elizabeth Chadwick is a prize-winning historical novelist and New York Times bestseller, published in 22 languages, with over 1 million copies of her work sold in the UK alone. THE ROYAL REBEL, the first of her new novels, is slated for September 2024 and tells the story of Jeanette, a young royal who refused to let history happen to her, defying the odds – as well as war, plague, and even her king – to blaze her own trail and be reunited with the man she loved.

Molly Walker-Sharp said: ‘Elizabeth Chadwick is renowned for her ability to sweep readers away to a time and place they can hardly imagine, and these novels are no exception. We are so proud to be working hand-in-hand with her to introduce readers to two headstrong heroines that time has all but forgotten.’

Elizabeth Chadwick said: ‘I am so delighted to be working with my wonderful editor Molly-Walker-Sharp and the team at Sphere on this contract for three historical novels set in the fourteenth century – a time of massive social and political upheaval, including a devastating pandemic that has so many parallels with our lives today. At the heart of the novels are two women: Jeanette – known mostly to history as Joan of Kent – a remarkable young woman, pressed by her family into moulds of expectation that she was always going to break, and Katherine Swynford, royal mistress, often vilified in her own time, but a woman of influence, indomitable strength and lasting fascination.’

Isobel Dixon said: ‘Elizabeth Chadwick has an uncanny knack of identifying fascinating historical figures and bringing them vividly to life, enthralling readers in many countries and languages. I am delighted that Sphere will be bringing the stories of Jeanette and Katherine to her fans on both sides of the Atlantic and further round the world.’

Elizabeth’s previous novel, THE KING’S JEWEL, was published in hardback by Sphere in April 2023 with the paperback edition to be published in April 2024.

About Elizabeth Chadwick

Elizabeth Chadwick lives in Nottingham with her husband and two sons. Her historical research is meticulous.  She works with primary and secondary sources, visits the locations and for many years has been a member of Regia Anglorum, an early medieval re-enactment society with emphasis on accurately recreating the past. She tutors in the skill of writing historical and romantic fiction.

Elizabeth won a Betty Trask Award for THE WILD HUNT, her first novel, and has been shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists' Award several times, winning in 2011 for TO DEFY A KING. THE SCARLET LION was selected by Historical Novel Society founder Richard Lee as one of his 'Ten Landmark Historical Novels of the Last Decade'.

Praise for Elizabeth Chadwick

‘An author who makes historical fiction come gloriously alive.’ – The Times

‘I rank Elizabeth Chadwick with such historical novelist stars as Dorothy Dunnett and Anya Seton.’ – Sharon Kay Penman

‘When I read Elizabeth Chadwick's novels I always feel as if I'm looking through a window onto actual historical events, her writing is so vivid, and her research so superb.’ –  Jane Johnson

‘Chadwick's depiction of the Middle Ages is sure and subtle, and her skill in imagining the private conversations that lead to the great decisions of their time is enjoyable.’ – Publisher’s Weekly

‘Chadwick’s research is impeccable, her characters fully formed and her storytelling enthralling.’ – The Historical Novel Review

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Natasha Carthew and Karen Powell shortlisted for the inaugural Nero Book Awards

We’re delighted to share the news that two Blake Friedmann books – UNDERCURRENT by Natasha Carthew and FIFTEEN WILD DECEMBERS by Karen Powell – have been shortlisted for the 2023 Nero Book Awards.

UNDERCURRENT has been shortlisted for the non-fiction award while FIFTEEN WILD DECEMBERS made the fiction shortlist. You can read about the other shortlisted titles here.

UNDERCURRENT was published in hardback by Coronet in April 2023, receiving excellent reviews and endorsements, including ‘this important and beautifully lyrical book asks questions about identity, belonging and the ability of words to transform a life’ from The Times. Part-memoir, part-investigation, part love-letter to Cornwall, UNDERCURRENT follows Natasha as she returns to the cliffs of her childhood, determined to make sense of an upbringing shaped by political neglect and a life defined by the beauty of nature. It is a journey through place, and a vivid story of hope, beauty and fierce resilience, and will be published in paperback in Spring 2024.

A Times Best Historical Fiction Books of 2023 pick, FIFTEEN WILD DECEMBERS was published by Europa Editions in October 2023. It is a creative retelling of the life of one of Britain’s most talented writers — Emily Bronte – and deftly explores imagination, liberty, sisterhood, and the power of nature in dazzling, evocative prose. Karen is currently working on her next novel.

The Nero Book Awards were launched in May 2023 and are underwritten and delivered by Caffè Nero in partnership with Right To Dream, The Booksellers Association and Brunel University London. The Awards ‘celebrate the craft of great writing and the joy of reading, while also pointing readers of all ages and interests in the direction of outstanding books.’ They recognise the ‘best writing and reads’ in the following categories: Children’s Fiction, Debut Fiction, Fiction and Non-Fiction.

Amanda Johnson, awards director, commented: ‘The announcement of our shortlist is such an exciting milestone for the Nero Book Awards. We have here an incredible range of books that will speak to a variety of different audiences, from books based on true stories to fantasies to explorations of self, place and landscape. Huge congratulations to all the shortlisted authors and their publishers. We hope that everyone will find a new favourite book on this list.’

The category winners will be announced on 16th January 2024 and those books will go forward for consideration for the 2023 Nero Gold Prize, to be announced at a ceremony in London in late February 2024.

About Natasha Carthew

Natasha Carthew is a working-class writer from Cornwall. She has written all her nine books outside, either in the fields and woodland that surround her home or in the cabin that she built from scrap wood. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Working Class Writers’ Festival and The Nature Writing Prize for Working Class Writers. Natasha is known for writing on socioeconomic issues and working-class representation in literature for several publications, podcasts and programmes; including ITV, BBC Radio 4, The Bookseller, Guardian, and The Economist. She is a recipient of The Bookseller Rising Star Award 2022.

Praise for UNDERCURRENT

‘A powerful story of social inequality told with the depth of voice that only comes from a writer passionately rooted in place. Like the Cornish tides that fill her life, Carthew is at times roaring, visceral and exclusive, in turn gentle, embracing and inclusive, but always driven by hope and determination.’ – Raynor Winn

‘Haunting and powerful, a book about the sea and the power of belonging, about secrets and words, this is a beautiful and powerful memoir. I read it in one sitting.’ – Kate Mosse

‘Carthew shows us Cornwall as it often lived but rarely seen, where the rich holiday and others struggle to survive. It's a tale of two counties with the ever-changing sea as a constant. It is a story of queer resistance, of community and of finding your own voice. Written with the personal campaign passion of Kerry Hudson’s LOWBORN.’ – Damian Barr

‘By turns marvellous, moving, & mesmerising’ – Anita Sethi

‘UNDERCURRENT deals with difficult issues, including violence, self-harm, Carthew’s unhappiness as a gay teenager and abuse of alcohol and drugs. There is righteous anger about the damage done to Cornish people by unemployment, social deprivation and lack of housing: “The heart of our communities is being ripped out”. But this is also a story of humour, resilience and doing things with Kernewek pride, and Carthew's decision in the closing pages to walk away from her self-destructive teenage life and the Cornish landscape she loved is moving.’ – Ann Kennedy Smith, Times Literary Supplement

About Karen Powell

Karen grew up in Rochester, Kent. She left school at sixteen but returned to education in her mid-twenties, reading English Literature at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. Karen lives with her family in York and works at York Minster Fund, a charity which raises money for the conservation and restoration of York Minster.

Her debut novel, THE RIVER WITHIN, was published by Europa in the USA and UK (2020) and Edizioni E/O in Italy, and was described as ‘utterly stunning’, ‘mesmerizing’ and hailed as ‘a masterpiece.’

Praise for FIFTEEN WILD DECEMBERS

‘How this isolated, grief-drenched existence gave rise to the passionate artistic sensibility of Emily’s poetry and fiction is powerfully envisioned in Karen Powell’s second novel, FIFTEEN WILD DECEMBERS. Powell’s debut novel, 2020’s THE RIVER WITHIN, was set in the 1950s in North Yorkshire, where Powell herself lives, and evinced the same fine eye for landscape that suffuses this novel… the worlds shared with her sisters and brother are beautifully drawn… Powell is faithful to the known facts about the Brontë family without letting this material oppress the fictional narrative… the description of the final weeks of Emily’s life is almost unbearably moving… for all this, the book’s lasting impression is not of melancholy, but unquenchable vitality… With FIFTEEN WILD DECEMBERS, Powell has served her heroine loyally.’ – Rebecca Abrams, The Financial Times

 ‘The story of moorland isolation, early deaths and burgeoning creativity is a familiar one, but Powell with Emily as her first-person narrator, gives it a new energy, capturing the vulnerability of the three sisters and their determination to make the most of their talents.’ – Nick Rennison, The Times, ‘The best historical fiction books of 2023’

 ‘I was spellbound by this fictionalised portrait of Emily Brontë, brimming with the texture of the dank, wild hills of Yorkshire, the weight and power of grief, and the contentment to be found in daring to forge one’s own path in the world. To read Karen Powell is to be constantly delighted and intrigued; each sentence is so sharp, so shining.’ – Elizabeth Macneal

‘Beautiful.’ – Victoria Hislop

‘Brilliant and imaginative… Its language is muscular and precise, its sympathy passionate, true and, in the end, overwhelming.’ – Anthony Quinn, author of CURTAIN CALL

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