Jayne Kirkham’s short story for Showtown Blackpool’s Seaside Week is currently streaming on Youtube.
JUDY ON THE BEACH is the story of Judy the dog who visits the seaside for the first time and is set in the Victorian era.
You can watch the story here
T.C. Farren’s THE BOOK OF MALACHI has been longlisted for the 2020 Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction by Africans, awarded by the African Speculative Fiction Society.
THE BOOK OF MALACHI was published by Kwela in South Africa, where the Cape Times described it as ‘utterly brilliant’ and the Sunday Times said the novel ‘will have you ripping through the pages’. It will be published in the UK and US by Titan Books in October 2020, with audio available from Bolinda.
Malachi Dakwaa has survived civil war but is mute, his tongue cut out. Disengaged from the world, he's performing mind-numbing work as a factory slave when he gets an extraordinary job offer he can't refuse. In exchange for six months as warden on a top-secret organ-farming project, Frasier Pharmaceuticals will graft a new tongue for him. Far out to sea, Malachi finds himself among warlords and mass murderers of the kind who have ruined him. But are the prisoners as evil as Frasier says? Do they deserve their fate?
As doubt starts to grow, Malachi’s own memories rise until he must make a terrible choice. To remain silent and let them suffer, or risk his life to set them free.
Malachi may have no tongue, but his is a voice you will never forget – sharply ironic, vividly descriptive and leavened with humour, every sense sharpened by his loss of speech. He is a compelling guide through the twists and turns of a terrible dilemma, in this darkly gripping but ultimately redemptive novel.
The shortlist of the Nommo Awards will be revealed in mid-May.
Praise for THE BOOK OF MALACHI
‘Farren is an exceptional writer, one of the best I’ve encountered, and not just in this country. By the time the novel ended, I was bereft, missing the characters and the setting as if I’d spent real time in an actual place. I can’t recommend this powerful novel highly enough.’ — Janet van Eeden Harrison, LitNet
‘Her descriptive powers are faultless, but more than that her understanding and exposition of what it is to be human, even in a broken form is magical… Sheer genius … Utterly brilliant.’ — Jennifer Crocker, Cape Times
‘Will have you ripping through the pages. Part thriller, part horror, part speculative fiction: this gripping read goes to the heart of ethical quandaries, forcing the reader to ask: “What if it were me?”’ — Sunday Times (SA)
‘An extraordinary, moving story that I read sometimes through the gaps in my fingers, like peeking at a horror movie — but one with hope and some exquisite visuals.’ — Country Life
T.C. Farren is a prize-winning novelist and scriptwriter, based in Cape Town. Her first novel, WHIPLASH won both humanitarian and literary awards. Her screenplay adaptation gave rise to the feature film, TESS, which won numerous awards, including a prestigious screenwriting nomination. She also adapted her highly acclaimed second novel, SNAKE to a screenplay which has won production funding and is due to be produced soon. HOTEL NOWHERE, T.C. Farren’s drug trafficking thriller script has recently been selected for development.
Joseph O’Connor adds yet more award recognition to his growing collection of accolades, with the news today that his novel SHADOWPLAY is shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award 2020. The winner of the award will be announced by Listowel Writers’ Week on Wednesday 27th May 2020.
Harvill Secker published SHADOWPLAY to rapturous reviews in the UK and Canada in June 2019, with the paperback to be published in October 2020. It was described as a ‘literary highlight of 2019’ by The Sunday Times. Europa will publish in June 2020 in the US, where the novel has received starred previews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, which described it as ‘an authentic and deeply moving literary experience’. In the UK, W.F. Howes published the audio edition, read by Barry McGovern and Anna Chancellor, and Dreamscape will publish the US audio edition. Rights have been sold in eight translation markets so far: China (Shanghai Elegant People), Croatia (Fraktura), France (Editions Rivages), Hungary (Helikon), Italy (Guanda), Serbia (Carobna Knjiga), Sweden (Natur Och Kultur) and Turkey (Sia Kitap). A film deal is under negotiation.
1878: The Lyceum Theatre, London. Three extraordinary people begin their life together, a life that will be full of drama, transformation, passionate and painful devotion to art and to one another. Henry Irving, the Chief, is the volcanic leading man and impresario; Ellen Terry is the most lauded and desired actress of her generation, outspoken and generous of heart; and ever following along behind them in the shadows is the unremarkable theatre manager, Bram Stoker.
Fresh from life in Dublin as a clerk, Bram may seem the least colourful of the trio, but he is wrestling with dark demons in a new city, in a new marriage, and with his own literary aspirations. As he walks the London streets at night, streets haunted by the Ripper and the gossip which swirls around his friend Oscar Wilde, he finds new inspiration. But the Chief is determined that nothing will get in the way of his manager’s devotion to the Lyceum and to himself. And both men are enchanted by the beauty and boldness of the elusive Ellen.
SHADOWPLAY explores the complexities of love that stands dangerously outside social convention, the restlessness of creativity, and the experiences that led to Dracula, the most iconic supernatural tale of all time.
Praise for Joseph O’Connor and SHADOWPLAY:
‘There are few living writers who can take us back in time so assuredly, with such sensual density, through such gorgeous sentences. Joseph O’Connor is a wonder, and SHADOWPLAY is a triumph.’ – Peter Carey
‘As much as this is a hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly – at times, agonisingly – a story of transience, loss and true loyalty.’ – Sadie Jones, The Guardian
‘Joseph O’Connor is a very great artist and storyteller. The quotient of enjoyment in his extraordinary new novel is stupendous.’ – Sebastian Barry
‘Wonderful. The writing is beautiful.’ – Derek Jacobi
‘A hugely entertaining and atmospheric novel, one can almost smell the greasepaint.’ – Deborah Moggach
‘Seriously fascinating’ – Colm Tóibín, The Observer
‘A virtuoso act of literary ventriloquism. SHADOWPLAY is funny, smart, tender, wise and written with inch-perfect precision.’ – Colum McCann
‘A great writer performing Olympian literary storytelling.’ — Bob Geldof
About the Author
Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. His books include nine novels: COWBOYS AND INDIANS (Whitbread Prize shortlist), DESPERADOES, THE SALESMAN, INISHOWEN, STAR OF THE SEA (American Library Association Award, Irish Post Award for Fiction, France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, Prix Madeleine Zepter for European novel of the year), REDEMPTION FALLS, GHOST LIGHT (Dublin One City One Book Novel 2011), THE THRILL OF IT ALL and SHADOWPLAY. His work has been published in forty languages. He received the 2012 Irish PEN Award for outstanding achievement in literature and in 2014 he was appointed Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.
Visit Joseph O’Connor’s website.
We are thrilled to announce that two Blake Friedmann authors have been longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2020: NOTHING IMPORTANT HAPPENED TODAY by Will Carver (Orenda Books, 2019) and RED SNOW by Will Dean (Point Blank, 2019). The award celebrates the best in crime fiction from UK and Irish crime authors.
You can cast your vote here.
About NOTHING IMPORTANT HAPPENED TODAY
Nine people arrive one night on Chelsea Bridge. They’ve never met. But at the same time, they run, and leap to their deaths. Each of them received a letter in the post that morning, a pre-written suicide note, and a page containing only four words: Nothing important happened today.
That is how they knew they had been chosen to become a part of the People Of Choice: A mysterious suicide cult whose members have no knowledge of one another.
Thirty-two people on that train witness the event. Two of them will be next. By the morning, People Of Choice are appearing around the globe; it becomes a movement. A social media page that has lain dormant for four years suddenly has thousands of followers. The police are under pressure to find a link between the cult members, to locate a leader that does not seem to exist.
How do you stop a cult when nobody knows they are a member?
'Heavy gusts of bedsit nihilism usher in this strange mystery... Weirdly page-turning.' — The Times, November Pick
'Unlike anything else you'll read this year.' Heat, 4 Starred Review
'Readers will be shocked and gripped by its sheer originality and ingenious plot... Carver has penned a pitch-black thriller. Cements him as one of the most exciting authors in Britain. ' — The Express, Starred Review
Will Carver lives in Reading, though his younger years were spent in various parts of West Germany. He is the author of five other thrillers, published by Penguin Random House and Orenda Books, and his new novel is out this summer. Will likes to work his body as much as his mind and runs his own fitness and nutrition company, though he prefers to talk about his writing more than how he consumes adequate protein as a vegan.
About RED SNOW
RED SNOW is the eagerly awaited follow-up to DARK PINES, selected for ITV's Zoe Ball Book Club and Winner of the Best Independent Voice Award at the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards 2019.
TWO BODIES. One suicide. One cold-blooded murder. Are they connected? And who’s really pulling the strings in the small Swedish town of Gavrik?
TWO COINS. Black Grimberg liquorice coins cover the murdered man's eyes. The hashtag #Ferryman starts to trend as local people stock up on ammunition.
TWO WEEKS. Tuva Moodyson, deaf reporter at the local paper, has a fortnight to investigate the deaths before she starts her new job in the south. A blizzard moves in. Residents, already terrified, feel increasingly cut-off. Tuva must go deep inside the Grimberg factory to stop the killer before she leaves town for good. But who’s to say the Ferryman will let her go?
'A complex plot, suffused with the nightmarish quality of Twin Peaks, and a tough-minded, resourceful protagonist add up to a stand-out read.' — The Guardian
‘Dean masterfully ramps up the tension and claustrophobia throughout the story’s sinister series of events before delivering an unexpected and satisfying finale. 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
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. The fourth book in the Tuva Moodyson series will be published in 2021 alongside his first standalone thriller.
Avon Books, a division of HarperCollins, has re-signed author Sue Moorcroft in a new three-book deal.
Publishing director Helen Huthwaite acquired world English language rights from Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedmann Agency.
Moorcroft is a Sunday Times bestselling author of contemporary fiction and reached the number one spot on Amazon Kindle UK with THE CHRISTMAS PROMISE. She also wrote A SUMMER TO REMEMBER, which won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2020.
Phoebe Morgan, editorial director at Avon, said: “Sue has gone from strength to strength at Avon, becoming a Kindle #1 bestseller, a Sunday Times bestseller and a much-loved author with a rapidly growing readership. We couldn’t be prouder and I can’t wait to see what she does next!”
Moorcroft said: “I'm delighted to have signed this, my fourth contract with the fabulous Avon team, and can't wait to bring readers three new books.”
Sue’s first book under this new deal, A CHRISTMAS WISH, will be published in October. Her latest summer novel, SUMMER ON A SUNNY ISLAND, has just been published.
Directors: Julian Friedmann, Isobel Dixon
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