We are delighted that TIEPOLO BLUE by James Cahill has been longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award was established in 1954, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and, except for the James Tait Black and the Hawthornden, the oldest literary prize in Britain. Past winners include Gail Honeyman, Jackie Kay and the late Gilbert Adair, also a Blake Friedmann client.

The other titles on this year’s longlist are: TO FILL A YELLOW HOUSE by Sussie Anie, THE DICTATOR’S WIFE by Freya Berry, MY NAME IS YIP by Paddy Crewe, EDGWARE ROAD by Yasmin Cordery-Khan, LITTLE BOXES by Cecilia Knapp, WHEN WE WERE BIRDS by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, BLACK BUTTERFLIES by Priscilla Morris, I’M A FAN by Sheena Patel, MOONLIGHT AND THE PEARLER’S DAUGHTER by Lizzie Pook, THE WHALEBONE THEATRE by Joanna Quinn and NO COUNTRY FOR GIRLS by Emma Styles.

Lucy Popescu, the chair of the judging panel, said: ‘We are delighted to announce our longlist of 12 debut novelists tackling a fascinating diversity of subjects. These compelling novels explore art and privilege, war, loss, blackmail and theft as well as love, desire, obsession and the pursuit of power. We visit several UK locations and are transported to the American frontier, Australia, Trinidad, Eastern Europe and the siege of Sarajevo.’

The shortlist for this year’s prize will be announced on 20 March, with the winner being revealed at the National Liberal Club on 24 May.

TIEPOLO BLUE follows the unravelling of revered art historian Donald Lamb. Freed from the constraints of academia, it looks like the anarchic contemporary art scene of 1990s London might be his salvation, but he soon suffers an earth-shattering fall from grace that leaves him questioning everyone and everything.

TIEPOLO BLUE was published in hardback by Sceptre in June 2022 to great acclaim. It attracted widespread praise, including from Patrick Gale and Stephen Fry (the latter describing it as ‘The best novel I have read for ages’), and was also included in the BBC’s and Times Literary Supplement’s ‘Best of 2022’ lists. It will be published in paperback on 27 April 2023.

James is currently writing his second novel, THE VIOLET HOUR, which will be published in hardback by Sceptre in Summer 2024. Set in New York, London and Switzerland, the novel reveals the secret history of a reclusive artist, a monomaniacal collector, and the art dealer caught between them.

Praise for TIEPOLO BLUE

‘The spirit of E.M. Forster is alive and well in James Cahill. The same palpating of damaged moral tissue, the same psychological canniness, the same gently invoked erudition, the same exactitude and eloquence – except Cahill is able to explore forbidden themes that Forster feared to touch on except posthumously’ – Edmund White

‘The best novel I have read for ages. My heart was constantly in my throat as I read… There is so much to enjoy, to contemplate, to wonder at, and to be lost in.’ – Stephen Fry

‘Imagine if Hollinghurst and Murdoch collaborated on a witty update of DEATH IN VENICE and you'll see the appeal of James Cahill's assured debut.’ – Patrick Gale

‘The last debut novel I read that had this much talent buzzing around inside it was Alan Hollinghurst’s THE SWIMMING-POOL LIBRARY.’ – Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

‘Beautifully captures disorientation, tenderness and heat without tipping into excess…an electric new novel written by an author skilled in the evocation of vertiginous, heightened emotion.’ – Michael Donkor, The Guardian, ‘Book of the Day’

‘The plot is propulsive, though the crafted ambience of unease simultaneously destabilizes the reader at every turn. The prose is fluid and precise but the tone equivocal, bathos merging into pathos, tragedy into farce and back again… Oscar Wilde’s paradoxes – about the relationship between art and life, illusion and reality, true and false selves – lie half submerged throughout this bravura debut, but so does the vulnerability of Thomas Mann’s Gustav von Aschenbach… It is the moments when rawness and confusion burst to the surface that prevent this witty yet unnerving book from being too clever.’ – Lucasta Miller, Times Literary Supplement

About James Cahill

James Cahill was born in London. Over the past decade, he has worked in the art world and academia, combining writing and research with a role at a leading contemporary art gallery.

His writing on art has appeared in publications including The Burlington Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The London Review of Books. He was the lead author and consulting editor of FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN (Phaidon, 2018), a survey of classical myth in art from antiquity to the present day. He was the co-curator of ‘The Classical Now’, an exhibition at King’s College London (March-April 2018), examining the relationships between ancient, modern and contemporary art.

He is currently a Research Fellow in Classics at King’s College London.

Follow James on Twitter and Instagram

Karen Sullivan at Orenda books has acquired UK & BC (ex Can) rights to two new novels from Will Carver.

GOOD SAMARITANS is a dark and daring new high-concept thriller, with all the right ingredients for a bestseller: one crossed wire, three dead bodies and six bottles of bleach.

Seth Beauman can’t sleep. He stays up late, calling strangers from his phonebook, hoping to make a connection, while his wife, Maeve, sleeps upstairs. A crossed wire finds a suicidal Hadley Serf on the phone to Seth, thinking she is talking to The Samaritans. But a seemingly harmless, late-night hobby turns into something more for Seth and for Hadley, and soon their late night chats are turning into day-time meet-ups. And then this dysfunctional love story turns into something altogether darker, when Seth brings Hadley home. Dead.

Maeve can’t believe Seth’s done it again. Can’t believe she’s trimming another person’s fingernails, removing traces of evidence, burning her clothes, wrapping someone in plastic. Can’t believe the police on the news are getting it so wrong. Can’t believe she and Seth are talking again, having sex again. It might not be traditional marriage counselling but it’s working.

For now.

Because somebody saw Seth the night he killed Hadley. And he wants something more than justice. He wants a taste.

GOOD SAMARITANS is cool, dark, and sexy, with a plot wound more tightly than its characters. A highly original thriller, that plays with and subverts the reader’s expectations.

Sullivan said: "I was riveted by this book and I can’t remember the last time I read a submission in one go … nor felt such a visceral sense of anxiety as I read. It’s stunning: dark, dangerous, sexy, wildly readable, brilliantly plotted and paced and, yet, completely different to anything I’ve ever read. In a nutshell, it is exactly the kind of book I want to be publishing at Orenda, and it’s going to be huge. This is a scorching return to the crime-fiction scene for the unbelievably talented Will Carver, and I am absolutely elated to get this on my list. It’s quite simply outstanding."

Carver said he is "absolutely thrilled" with the deal.

"I know how passionate they are about the books that they publish and the writers they represent. There’s a real sense of spirit and daring to the way they work that I admire. And I believe it to be the perfect fit for my books and the way that I write. Exciting times ahead", he said.

Carver's agent, Tom Witcomb, said: "I'm so pleased that Will is joining the Orenda family. There are few who match Karen and her team in terms of passion and enthusiasm for the books they publish, and that shows in the results they get. I can't wait to see what they do with GOOD SAMARITANS, a pitch perfect, subversive genre novel, that's sure to invigorate readers looking for a fresh, exciting voice. It seems a match made in heaven.'

Orenda will publish in Autumn 2018.