RIGHTS TO KAREN POWELL'S THE RIVER WITHIN SOLD TO EUROPA EDITIONS AT AUCTION

Europa Editions UK has secured Karen Powell's "extraordinary" novel at auction.

Director Christopher Potter has acquired rights for two titles from Samuel Hodder at Blake Friedmann following a two-publisher auction. As well as UK and Commonwealth, Potter bought rights for United States and Italy “such was the strength of our feelings and commitment”. Europa will publish the first novel, THE RIVER WITHIN, in 2020.

“I was bowled over by the poetic intensity of this extraordinary novel,” Potter said. THE RIVER WITHIN is as evocative of place and landscape as any novel I can think of. I believe THE RIVER WITHIN will immediately find its place as a classic in a tradition that includes the novels of Thomas Hardy and Graham Swift.”

Powell said: “I am delighted to be working with an editor of Christopher’s calibre and with Europa Editions – they’re passionate champions of European literary fiction and the quality of their list is ridiculously good.”

For both titles, audio rights for the UK and British Commonwealth (excluding Canada) were sold to WF Howes.

THE RIVER WITHIN is a piercing and evocative novel set in 1950s Yorkshire. On a summer’s day in the village of Starome, the body of young Danny Masters emerges from the river. It’s found by Danny’s three teenage friends: Alexander, the volatile heir to Richmond Hall, the country estate that neighbours Starome, and sister and brother, Lennie and Tom, whose father is secretary to the Richmond family. The friends’ responses to Danny’s death are strange. Why does Alexander seem oddly stimulated, excited even, and why is Lennie so keen for everyone to move on? How did Danny die? Did he fall in, or jump? Or worse?  In an interweaving narrative that moves across the months before and after Danny’s death, the secrets of the village begin to surface.

Powell left school at 16, but returned to education as a mature student to study English Literature at Cambridge University. She lives in Yorkshire, and an early draft of THE RIVER WITHIN was awarded a Northern Writers’ TLC ‘New Fiction Reads’ prize, which seeks to support work-in-progress by new, emerging and established writers across the North of England. She subsequently attended the ‘New Writing North’ Summer Talent Salon in 2018, where she secured agent representation from Hodder.  

Trailer released for SUPERVISED written by Andy Briggs

The trailer for the new film SUPERVISED has been released, watch it here!

SUPERVIZED tells the story of an elderly group of international superheroes retired to Dunmanor nursing home in Ireland. Ray is the once world renowned ‘Maximum Justice’ who as his nom de plume suggests will fight bad with good till the cows come home. He finds it hard to accept that his hero days are over and now it’s bingo games and blanket baths. His old team consisting of trusted sidekick Ted AKA ‘Shimmy’, old flame Madera ‘Moonlight’ and rival at everything Pendle ‘Total Thunder’ are far more accepting of their undignified destiny. When Jerry, ‘Rainbow Warrior,’ dies after having his superpowers ‘downwardly managed’ for the safety of others, a federation sectioned procedure, Ray suspects foul play and decides to investigate. The rest of the gang is not so convinced, and Ray finds himself battling against not only his enemies, but the stigma and restrictions of old age.

Releases July 19th

Headline scoops Allie Reynolds debut SHIVER for six figures in 10-publisher auction

Headline has scooped the “beautifully original” debut from ex-snowboarder Allie Reynolds for six figures following a 10-publisher auction.

Fiction publishing director Jennifer Doyle acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in a two-book deal from Kate Burke of Blake Friedmann, in partnership with Hachette Australia. SHIVER will be published as a lead hardback in January 2021 simultaneously with Hachette Australia.

The high-concept thriller is set in the French Alps, focusing on five friends who meet for a reunion years after taking part in a snowboarding competition and the disappearance of the enigmatic Saskia. In a deserted lodge up a mountain, the secrets of their past are about to come to light.

Doyle said: “I was hooked from the pitch when I first heard about SHIVER. But it was as I was drawn into the novel by the intriguing and original voice of lead character Milla that I knew I had to publish it. Allie has created a compulsive and painfully tense thriller, with a perfectly paced plot, in which she gives the reader a captivating insight into another world. Here is a set of complex characters that are every bit as thrilling as the action on the ski slopes, and I couldn’t tear myself away until the novel came to its jaw-dropping close. I can’t wait to introduce SHIVER to readers everywhere.”

Reynolds is a former freestyle snowboarder, who spent five winters in France, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. In 2003, she swapped her snowboard for a surfboard and moved to the Gold Coast, Australia, where she has taught English as a foreign language for 15 years. Her short fiction has been published in women’s magazines in the UK, Australia, Sweden and South Africa.

She said: “SHIVER was inspired by the winters I spent training in the beautiful yet deadly world of the high mountains. I'm blown away by the amount of interest in my novel and thrilled to be published by Headline and around the world.”

The novel has already been pre-empted in the US by Penguin Putnam, HarperCollins in Germany, Calmann Levy in France, Piemme in Italy and Albatros in Poland. Auctions are still underway in several territories.

Burke said: “I signed Allie less than two days after reading her incredible debut and was delighted when, upon submission, editors had the same reaction I had – sheer excitement. This type of brilliantly original thriller doesn’t come along that often and I’m thrilled to be working with Allie and her publishers on bringing SHIVER to readers around the world.”  

DIMA ALZAYAT WINS THE ALCS TOM-GALLON TRUST AWARD 2019 WITH FOR ONCE WE WERE SYRIANS

We are thrilled to announce that Dima Alzayat has been awarded the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award for her short story, FOR ONCE WE WERE SYRIANS. The award was announced at last night’s Society of Authors ceremony at Southwark Cathedral.

FOR ONCE WE WERE SYRIANS is featured in Dima’s short story collection ALLIGATOR AND OTHER STORIES, which will be published by Picador in the UK in 2020 and by Two Dollar Radio in the United States. The collection explores feelings of displacement as a Syrian, as an Arab, as a woman - always as an ‘other’. Told through the lens of often very everyday scenarios, her stories are rich, relatable, and full of nuance.

Dima Alzayat was born in Damascus, Syria, grew up in San Jose, California, and now lives in Manchester. She was the winner of a 2018 Northern Writers’ Award, the 2017 Bristol Short Story Prize and 2015 Bernice Slote Award, runner-up in the 2018 Deborah Rogers Award and the 2018 Zoetrope: All-Story Competition, and was Highly Commended in the 2013 Bridport Prize.

Her stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Bristol Short Story Award Anthology, Bridport Prize Anthology, and Enizagam. Her short story ‘In the Land of Kan’an’ was included in artist Jenny Holzer’s projection For Aarhus and was part of Holzer’s 2017 exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. She is a PhD student and associate lecturer at Lancaster University.

 Praise for Dima Alzayat

‘Originality is met by craft: you can feel, as you read, the wind catching their sails… Dima Alzayat [is] on the cusp of terrific work, has a distinctive take on the world, and a sense of place in her chosen literary tradition, producing work that is sometimes funny and always new.’ — Anne Enright, The Deborah Rogers Writers’ Award

Charles Lambert’s PRODIGAL longlisted for the Polari Prize 2019

Charles Lambert’s novel PRODIGAL, published by Gallic Books in August 2018, has been longlisted for the Polari Prize 2019. The prize honours writers “whose work explores the LGBT experience, whether in poetry, prose, fiction, or nonfiction”. While there has previously been a Polari First Book Prize, this year is the first time that there will be an award given to an established writer also. The shortlist will be announced at a special Polari Salon at the Southbank Centre on 26 July and the winner announced in October during the London Literature Festival.

PRODIGAL is a fearless, elegantly written exploration of family, trust, death, and what we do to one another in the name of love, told within the wider context of a beautiful yet troubling, queer coming-of-age tale.

Jeremy, a hapless man in his late 50s, scrapes together a living in Paris by writing soft-core pornography under the saucy guise of ‘Nathalie Cray’. When his all-but-estranged sister tells him their father is on his deathbed, Jeremy reluctantly travels back to his parental home in the depths of the English countryside.

Confronted with a life that he had always been eager to escape, his return marks the start of an emotionally fraught journey into the family’s chequered past. The journey takes him back to the unexpected death of his mother in a provincial Greek hospital years earlier and, further back, to the moment at which the Eldritch family fell apart.

It’s a journey composed of revelations, of secrets disclosed and not disclosed, and of something that might, or might not, be reconciliation...

Last year Charles’s novel THE CHILDREN’S HOME was included in a New York Times list of 13 Haunted Books to read before watching THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE.

Born in England, Charles lives in Fondi, near Rome, working as a university teacher and freelance editor. His first novel, LITTLE MONSTERS, a Good Housekeeping selection, was published in 2008 by Picador, the same year as THE SCENT OF CINNAMON AND OTHER STORIES (Salt Publishing), the title story of which was an O. Henry Prize winner. His second novel, ANY HUMAN FACE (Picador), was described by the Telegraph as 'a slow-burning, beautifully written crime story that brings to life the Rome that tourists don't see - luckily for them.'

In 2014, Charles’s experimental autobiography WITH A ZERO AT ITS HEART (The Friday Project) was one of the Guardian's top ten books of that year. THE CHILDREN’S HOME, a dystopic story of a haunted house, was published in 2016 to widespread praise, followed by TWO DARK TALES, in 2017, both by Gallic Books.


Praise for Charles Lambert

‘Charles Lambert writes as if his life depends on it. He takes risks at every turn.’ – Hannah Tinti

‘Charles Lambert is a seriously good writer.' – Dame Beryl Bainbridge

‘Compelling reading.’ – Patricia Duncker

‘Charles Lambert is a terrific, devious storyteller.’ – Owen King


Praise for THE CHILDREN’S HOME

‘A thoroughly original entry into the tradition of ghost stories, eschewing convention …compulsively readable…A one-of-a-kind literary horror story.’ – Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

‘Lambert carefully constructs the restricted sphere that Fletcher inhabits, leaving the chaotic larger world and the source of his family fortune largely a mystery. After slowly unfolding Fletcher’s story, Lambert then accelerates the pace to a breathtaking climax. THE CHILDREN’S HOME is a magical, mesmerizing tale about the courage it takes to confront the unknown.’ – Booklist, Starred Review

‘THE CHILDREN’S HOME is like a strange dream in which you can’t quite tell if you’re awake…The resulting story is a weird, poignant journey reminiscent of Calvino that explores fear, power, revenge and redemption. Lambert’s story is addictive … its potent, often brutal, images have a lasting power.’ – Sheri Bodoh, BookPage


Visit Charles’ blog

You can also follow Charles on Twitter.