THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH by Monique Roffey to be published by Vintage in paperback

We are delighted to announce a new stage in the epic journey of THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH by Monique Roffey. Originally published in 2020 by Jeremy Poynting and Hannah Bannister of Peepal Tree Press, to widespread acclaim, Penguin Random House’s Vintage imprint will now pick up the baton to publish the 2020 Costa Book Award winner in paperback and eBook.  Alex Russell at Vintage acquired UK & Commonwealth rights excluding Canada from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann. Vintage will publish THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH in paperback and eBook on 10 June, with a high-profile marketing and publicity campaign. Alongside Vintage, Harvill Secker have also acquired UK & Commonwealth rights to Monique Roffey’s next novel, due to be published in 2023.

THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH was published by Peepal Tree Press in the UK in April 2020 and has risen to become one of the most lauded novels of the year. It was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Folio Prize and won both the Costa Novel Award and the Costa Book of the Year Award 2020. It has also been shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses and longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Translation rights have been sold in France, Germany, Holland, Croatia, Serbia, Italy, Hungary, Turkey and Russia, with offering in other markets under way and a film deal being concluded. W.F. Howes publish the audio edition and radio reading rights have also been sold.

Monique Roffey says: ‘THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH is a lucky book and I am thrilled with this deal, which takes me from one dream team to another. I look forward to working with Alex Russell and the Harvill Secker and Vintage teams as my mermaid swims out into wider oceans, and with the new book.’

Alex Russell, Senior Editor at Vintage, says: ‘The Costa Prize judges celebrated THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH as “a classic in the making” and I couldn’t agree more. I escaped into Monique Roffey’s entrancing, unforgettable writing and was blown away by a story of love, jealousy and the search for freedom. Monique is a literary star and I cannot wait for readers to encounter the new novel too. It is thrilling to be joining her on a new adventure this summer and beyond at Vintage and Harvill Secker.’

Isobel Dixon, Head of Books at Blake Friedmann, says: ‘From the moment I read the manuscript I knew THE MERMAID OF BLACK was something extra special. She has swum through turbulent waters in this strange year, steered by the great team at Peepal Tree Press, and it has been an absolute joy to see the book and Monique receive such deserved acclaim. Here’s to an exciting new phase of the journey with Harvill Secker and Vintage as well.’

Jeremy Poynting at Peepal Tree Press says: ‘We will always be proud that we recognised immediately what a powerful novel THE MERMAID was and that we enjoyed with Monique Roffey its well-deserved success. For us, authors always come first, so we knew that it was in Monique’s interests that the rights to her novel should go to Vintage.’

Beth Coates, Publishing Director at Vintage, says: ‘We couldn’t be happier to have landed the wonder that is Monique Roffey and her MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH, as well as a new novel. We’ve long admired Monique’s vivid and fearless work and we can’t wait to join her on the next part of her literary journey.’

Liz Foley, Publishing Director at Harvill Secker, says: ‘We are honoured to welcome a writer of such exhilarating originality and quality to Harvill Secker and are so excited to be working with Monique on her next novel.’

A vivid, moving story of love and trust, family and friendship in a Caribbean island community, THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH is a world brought to unforgettable life by a master storyteller. A fisherman sings to himself in his boat, but attracts an unexpected sea-dweller — Aycayia, a beautiful young woman cursed to live as a mermaid, swimming the ocean for centuries. Theirs becomes a calm, unspoken bond. But when she hears David’s engine again one day and follows the vessel, she finds herself in a fierce battle for her life. Caught by American sports fishermen, she is strung up on the dock as a trophy, but David rescues her, and gently wins her trust as she starts to transform, painfully, back into a woman. But jealous eyes are watching them…

Interwoven with David and Aycayia’s love story is that of Miss Arcadia Rain, a white landowner bringing up her deaf son on a dwindling estate. As her young son connects with fellow outsider Aycayia, an old lover of Arcadia’s returns to the island and she too begins to feel her way into love and trust again.

See more about THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH on the Penguin Random House site and read an interview with Monique Roffey here.

Praise for THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH

‘Monique Roffey is a unique talent and most daring and versatile of writers.’ — Bernardine Evaristo

‘THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH arrives bearing tragedy and beauty. Monique Roffey has created a new myth for an age of ruined oceans. She continues to be one of our most exciting new Caribbean voices.’ — A.L. Kennedy

‘Monique Roffey is a writer of verve, vibrancy and compassion, and her work is always a joy to read.’ — Sarah Hall

‘THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH is wonderfully written, with both soul and intense drama – it glistens almost, like the mermaid! I love its all-round charisma and also its great compassion for both humanity and the natural world.’ — Diana Evans

‘THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH is like a lost myth, found, and made fresh again for our times.’ —  Tessa McWatt, author of Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging

About Monique Roffey

Credit: Marcus Bastel

Monique Roffey is an award-winning novelist. In addition to the success of THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH, House of Ashes (Scribner UK) was shortlisted for the Costa and the BOCAS Prize. Archipelago, winner of the OCM BOCAS prize for Caribbean Literature, was published by Scribner in the UK, Viking in the US, and translated into 5 languages. Her second novel The White Woman on the Green Bicycle was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Encore Prize, among other accolades, and film/TV rights have been optioned.

Visit Monique’s website

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PUBLIC DOMAIN to transfer to the West End

PUBLIC DOMAIN, the Five Star verbatim musical, is transferring to the Vaudeville Theatre for a limited run from 27th May 2021.

Following an acclaimed digital debut at Southwark Playhouse this thrilling, new British musical, composed entirely from the real-life words of YouTube vloggers, Instagram influencers, Facebook’s tech giants, and everyday internet users now has its live world premiere in the West End.

Assistant Directed by Blake Friedmann client Micha Mirto, Public Domain is written by, features music and lyrics and stars Francesca Forristal and Jordan Paul Clarke. Adam Lenson directs, with scenic and costume design by Libby Todd and lighting design by Matt Daw. Read more about it here.

SARAH LOTZ' IMPOSSIBLE TO BE ADAPTED AS A FEATURE

Filmmaker Siân Heder, whose Sundance hit CODA is set to direct and write a feature take of Sarah Lotz’s upcoming 2022 novel IMPOSSIBLE.

In association with AM Heath, Conrad Williams of the Blake Friedmann Media Department optioned the rights earlier this year to Patrick Wachsberger’s Picture Perfect Federation, who will be working with Black Label Media and Marsh Entertainment to produce the feature adaptation of the novel. You can find out more about our media department’s work with book-to-screen adaptations here.

The Penguin Group Berkley Books novel tells the story of Nick, a ghostwriter who is a disappointment to himself and his soon-to-be-ex-wife, and Bee, a commitment-phobe content on repurposing wedding dresses rather than finding a reason to wear one herself. The two are meant to be together, but fate has other plans. They have an instant connection after a misdirected email lands in Bee’s inbox, and over time they develop real feelings for each other. Eventually, Nick and Bee come to the conclusion that they have to meet in person, yet when they both arrive at their planned destination, they discover it’s love at the right time but in the completely wrong place.

In a joint statement, the producers of Black Label Media added, “We are so excited to re-team with Patrick Wachsberger who we have worked with for many years and collaborated with on such films as Sicario and La La Land. Impossible is an incredible novel and we are thrilled to be working with the wonderfully talented Sian Heder on the adaptation.”

LEFT YOU DEAD BY PETER JAMES JUMPS STRAIGHT TO NUMBER ONE ON THE HARDBACK BESTSELLER CHARTS

Peter James’s seventeenth Detective Superintendent Roy Grace novel, LEFT YOU DEAD, has flown straight to the Number 1 position in the Sunday Times hardback bestseller chart after only three days on sale, giving Peter his eighteenth Number 1 on the British charts this Sunday. The stellar three-day sales also make LEFT YOU DEAD the biggest hardback fiction title launch of the year.

In LEFT YOU DEAD, Niall and Eden Paternoster start their Sunday the same way they always do – with a long drive, a visit to a country house and a quick stop at the local supermarket on the way home. But this Sunday ends differently – because while Niall waits and waits in the car park for Eden to pick up supplies, Eden never returns. She’s not waiting for him at home, and none of their family or friends have heard from her.

Gone without a trace, Niall is arrested on suspicion of her murder. When DS Roy Grace is called in to investigate, it doesn’t take long to realize that nothing is quite as it seems – and this might be his most mysterious case yet.

Later this month, WISH YOU WERE DEAD, a Roy Grace novella written by Peter for The Reading Agency’s Quick Reads scheme will be published by Pan Macmillan. And next month, Peter James fans will be able to get their hands on a paperback of Peter’s standalone thriller, I FOLLOW YOU. 

March saw the much-anticipated release of ITV’s GRACE, based on the first book in the Roy Grace series, DEAD SIMPLE. The series launched in a prime-time Sunday slot to widespread praise from the critics and 8.8 million strong viewing figures. The show was launched in April by Britbox North America with DEAD SIMPLE and LOOKING GOOD DEAD streaming for fans in the US and Canada.

Praise for Peter James:

‘Sinister and riveting… Peter James is one of the best British crime writers, and therefore one of the best in the world.’ — Lee Child

‘Peter James creates a world we can smell, touch and feel for his Brighton detective Inspector Roy Grace.’ – The Times

‘A master plotter who cunningly tunes into contemporary concerns. Peter James cannot fail to thrill.’ ­– Daily Mail

'Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business.' — Karin Slaughter

About the Author:

Peter James is an international bestselling crime and thriller writer. In 2015 WHSmith customers voted him the Greatest Crime Author of All Time and in 2016 he was awarded the coveted CWA Diamond Dagger, a lifetime achievement award for sustained excellence. In 2018 he received a Specsavers Honorary Platinum Bestseller Award.

Successful nationwide tours of the stage plays of THE PERFECT MURDER (2014), DEAD SIMPLE (2015), NOT DEAD ENOUGH (2017) and THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL (2019) have played to packed theatres in dozens of British cities, and garnered magnificent reviews. The newest Roy Grace theatre production, LOOKING GOOD DEAD, will tour in 2021.

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THE YOUNG TEAM by Graeme Armstrong shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize & Awards

We are thrilled that Graeme Armstrong’s THE YOUNG TEAM has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize & Awards for a debut novel by a writer under 35. Judge Vaseem Khan commended the shortlisted novels for being ‘measured and precise’, ‘erudite and linguistically nimble’, ‘quietly powerful’, and ‘a narrative whose power lasts long after the reading stops’. Also shortlisted are Bad Love by Maame Blue, The Last Good Man by Thomas McMullan, The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams, The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and The Water House by Nneoma Ike-Njoku.

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards, awarded by the Society of Authors, were founded after Betty Trask left a bequest to the Society of Authors in 1983 to fund prizes for first novels written by authors under the age of 35 in a traditional or romantic, but not experimental, style. The total prize fund is £26,200. ​Past winners include Zadie Smith, David Szalay, Hari Kunzru and Sarah Waters.

The winners will be announced online on Wednesday 9th June, in an online ceremony presented by novelist Joanne Harris.

THE YOUNG TEAM was published in 2020 by Picador and became a Times top 10 bestseller. The paperback was published in April 2021.

2005. Glasgow is named Europe’s Murder Capital, driven by a violent territorial gang and knife culture. In the housing schemes of adjacent Lanarkshire, Scotland’s former industrial heartland, wee boys become postcode warriors.

2004. Azzy Williams joins the Young Team [YTP]. A brutal gang conflict with their deadly rivals, the Young Toi [YTB] begins.

2012. Azzy dreams of another life. He faces his toughest fight of all – the fight for a different future.

Expect Buckfast. Expect bravado. Expect street philosophy. Expect rave culture. Expect anxiety. Expect addiction. Expect a serious facial injury every six hours. Expect murder.

Hope for a way out.

Inspired by the experiences of its author, Graeme Armstrong, THE YOUNG TEAM is an energetic novel, full of the loyalty, laughs, mischief, boredom, violence and threat of life on these streets. It looks beyond the tabloid stereotypes to tell a powerful story about the realities of life for young people in Britain today.

‘Raw and lyrical . . . written in a voice that recalls Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner – dialect that fizzes off the page.’ – The Observer

‘Graeme Armstrong's debut novel is an instant Scottish classic.’ – The Skinny

‘Vivid, dynamic and sharp as a whip.’ – Janice Galloway, author of The Trick is to Keep Breathing

‘[A] gripping debut novel . . . [Armstrong] is quite a phenomenon . . . one of the most admired young voices in British fiction.’ – Mike Wade, The Times

Photo: Robin Farquhar-Thomson

Graeme Armstrong is a Scottish writer from Airdrie. His teenage years were spent within North Lanarkshire’s gang culture. He was inspired to study English Literature after reading Irvine Welsh’s TRAINSPOTTING at just sixteen. Alongside overcoming his own struggles with drug addiction, alcohol abuse and violence, he defied expectation to read English as an undergraduate at the University of Stirling; where, after graduating with honours, he returned to study a Masters’ in Creative Writing.

He regularly volunteers within the community visiting prisons and schools, giving talks on his experiences of gang-culture and substance abuse. He promotes a message of anti-violence and abstinence-based recovery.

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