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

Follow Elizabeth Chadwick on Twitter and Instagram.

Visit Elizabeth Chadwick’s website.

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

Follow Natasha on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram

Follow Karen on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram

Deon Meyer’s LEO storms the South African charts

Congratulations to Deon Meyer – whose new novel LEO celebrates its fourth consecutive week at the top of the official South African charts, having sold more than 2,500 copies in its first week and continuing to dominate the bestseller lists ever since.

LEO marks the return of Meyer’s iconic detectives Benny Griessel – now also the star of the new 5-part M-Net series DEVIL’S PEAK – and his police detective partner Vaughn Cupido. LEO follows on from 2020’s DONKERDRIF (English title: THE DARK FLOOD), which won the Adult Fiction prize at the 2021 SA Book Awards, and was longlisted for the prestigious CWA International Dagger. LEO is published in South Africa by Human & Rousseau; the English translation, by K. L. Seegers, will be out with Hodder in the UK in 2024.

In Meyer’s trademark style, LEO weaves together several seemingly unconnected strands into a tense and gripping investigation. A young female student is found dead on a mountain trail near the university town of Stellenbosch, where Benny and Vaughn have been demoted and sent to work at the local police station. In the north of the country, a beautiful wildlife guide with a mysterious past is recruited by a group of special forces soldiers to act as a honeytrap, part a dangerous multi-million-dollar heist that goes tragically wrong. And back in leafy Stellenbosch, a local businessman is found murdered in what looks like a professional hit – suffocated by filler foam sprayed down his throat. A message to keep silent – but about what? You need a cool head to unravel it all, under enormous pressure. You have to stay calm, focused – and sober. Benny may be sober, but he’s not feeling calm. Because in just a few weeks he is set to get married, a date that’s racing towards him like an express train. Big trouble, on every front.

About Deon Meyer

Deon Meyer lives in Cape Town. His books are sold in 23 countries, and have been awarded many prizes around the world: the Deutsche Krimi Prize in Germany, the ATKV Prize in South Africa, the Martin Beck Award in Sweden and Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Le Prix Mystère de la Critique in France. COBRA was shortlisted for the 2015 CWA International Dagger, THIRTEEN HOURS was shortlisted for the 2010 CWA International Dagger, and HEART OF THE HUNTER, was longlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Prize and selected as one of Chicago Tribune’s ‘10 best mysteries and thrillers of 2004’. THE DARK FLOOD was longlisted for the 2023 CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation.

Praise for LEO

‘When a new Deon Meyer lands on the shelves, I feel like W.H. Auden: “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.” All 490 pages of such a book have to be devoured in one sitting. Keep it for the holidays, or for a weekend when you have nothing planned… You’ll be on the edge of your seat, chewing your nails… Meyer is the best, if you ask me... Buy LEO and take a day or two off work.’ – Deborah Steinmair, Vrye Weekblad

Praise for Deon Meyer

‘Deon Meyer's name on the cover is a guarantee of crime writing at its best.’ – Tess Gerritsen

‘Deon Meyer should be on everyone's reading list.’ – Michael Connelly

‘Deon Meyer is the monarch of South African crime novelists.’ – Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

‘Unquestionably the supremo of South African crime-writing fiction’ – Peter James

‘Deon Meyer is not just South Africa’s greatest crime writer, he’s up there with the best in the world.’ – Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘Deon Meyer is good at sketching a realistic country, people we recognise and grow accustomed to, and telling a darn good yarn.’ – Diane De Beer, The Star

‘Deon Meyer is one of the best crime writers on the planet.’ – Mail on Sunday

Visit Deon’s website

Follow Deon on Twitter

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

Photo credit: Lealle

Costa Book Award-winner Hannah Lowe has been shortlisted for the highly prestigious 2024 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award.

The award is given annually to two writers in the early stages of a new book relating to the Americas, with the £20,000 prize now in its 13th year. Along with the £20,000 grant, the winners also receive a residency at the British Library, the chance to appear at future Hay Festival editions with their published work, and the opportunity to work with the Eccles Centre to develop and facilitate activities and events related to their research at the British Library. Past winners include Olivia Laing, John Burnside and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo.

The other writers on this year’s shortlist are Mexican novelist Julian Herbert Chavez, Irish art critic Isobel Harbison, Bolivian novelist Rodrigo Hasbún, British-American historian Sarah M.S. Pearsall, and Chilean novelist Alia Trabucco Zerán. You can read about them and their work here.

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 device for 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.’

The winners will be announced at an awards reception at the British Library on Wednesday 29 November.

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

Visit Hannah’s website

Follow Hannah on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram

Henrietta Rose-Innes wins the University of Johannesburg Prize for Translation

Credit: Martin Figura

Congratulations to novelist, short story writer and translator Henrietta Rose-Innes, who has been awarded this year’s University of Johannesburg Prize for Translation for her work on the English language edition of Etienne van Heerden’s acclaimed A LIBRARY TO FLEE (Tafelberg, 2022).

The prize recognises the outstanding translation of a text from any language into any one of the official South African languages, with Henrietta working from Etienne’s original Afrikaans text DIE BIBLIOTEEK AAN DIE EINDE VAN DE WÊRELD to produce this book: a feat made all the more remarkable by the text’s expansive length, running to nearly 800 pages in its original edition.

‘Henrietta’s exemplary work in bridging linguistic and cultural gaps through translation has earned her this esteemed accolade,’ writes the University in a press release. ‘UJ sends its warmest congratulations to Henrietta Rose-Innes for her exceptional contribution to the world of translation and for her dedication to fostering greater cultural understanding through the art of language. Her remarkable work will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact on the world of literature and multilingual communication.’

Etienne van Heerden’s A LIBRARY TO FLEE book was called ‘huge, inventive, fascinating, funny, troubling, and highly courageous’ by Professor David Atwell (co-editor of The Cambridge History of South African Literature) and longlisted for the 2023 Sunday Times Literary Awards in South Africa.

About Henrietta Rose-Innes

Henrietta is a prize-winning author and literary translator with degrees in archaeology and biology, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. She has worked in publishing, scriptwriting and as a creative writing teacher. She is the author of four novels: SHARK'S EGG (SA: Kwela 2000), THE ROCK ALPHABET (SA: Kwela 2004), NINEVEH (SA: Umuzi imprint, 2011; UK: Gallic Books, 2016), and her latest novel GREEN LION, published by Umuzi in 2015 and by Gallic Books in 2017. She is also an acclaimed writer of short fiction, and her 2010 collection of short stories, HOMING, features the 2008 Caine Prize winning story 'Poison' and the 2010 Willesden Prize runner-up, 'Falling'.

Praise for Henrietta Rose-Innes

‘Henrietta Rose-Innes writes an admirably taut clean prose.’ — J M Coetzee.

‘Rose-Innes’ writing is as entertaining as it is subtle – a rare combination.’ — Steven Amsterdam, author of WHAT THE FAMILY NEEDED.

‘I love Henrietta Rose-Innes’s work. With plotlines that are wittily subversive and language that is whippet-lean, it is long overdue for discovery by a wider readership.’ — Patrick Gale, author of NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION

‘Rose-Innes writes with a dreamlike, lyrical beauty, but she has the ability to keep a tight hold on her plot. Each of her works is a finely wrought delight.’ – Jennifer Crocker, Cape Times

Follow Henrietta on Twitter