Dear newsletter subscriber,
Recent News
For the last week of July three agency titles were in the top twenty paperback non-fiction list:
Emily Mackenzie whose Runaway was no 7. It has been S&S’s summer non-fiction hit and has spent August in the top ten paperback non-fiction best seller list.
Cathy Glass whose Please Don’t Take My Baby was no 12 and went on to several more weeks in the top twenty.
Casey Watson whose Breaking the Silence: Two little boys, lost and unloved. One foster carer determined to make a difference. was no 19.
Random House have bought Lisa Clegg’s The Blissful Baby Expert and The Blissful Toddler Expert
World English rights in Debbie McDonald’s biography The Mysterious Lives of Moura Budberg written with Jeremy Dronfield, have been sold to One World.
US rights in Piu Eatwell’s They eat horses, don’t they?: The Truth about the French have been bought by Thomas Dunne Books.
Recent foreign rights deals include:
Dutch rights in Sean McMeekin’s The Russian Revolution to Niewe Amsterdam
Romanian rights in Simon Berthon’s Warlords to Humanitas
Polish rights in Michael Jago’s The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham to Wydawnictwo RM
The serial rights in Spencer Matthew’s Confessions of a Chelsea Boy: : The Autobiography have gone to Now Magazine.
Linda Porter’s Crown of Thistles: The fatal inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots has had rave reviews.
Katharine Quarmby’s book on the travelling community in Britain and abroad, No Place to Call Home was serialised in the Observer.
Daniel Tammet secured starred reviews in all the four big book publications. - Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly and Booklist - for Thinking in Numbers
Clare Mulley’s The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville was an “Editor’s Choice” in the New York Times Book Review
Joyce Mackenzie’s debut novel The Gold Mohur Tree, part of Amazon’s Europe-wide summer promotion, has sold particularly well in France where it went to #2 in Historical Fiction:
Zoe Griffin chose Lynne Barrett-Lee’s new creative writing guide Novel: Plan it, Write it, Sell it. as her Book of the Week.
David Weston's Dodger Down Under and Sarah Ingham's Kissing Frogs, both recently published by Thistle Publishing, were selected for Amazon's summer promotions. As a result, Kissing Frogs reached #17 in the overall Amazon bestseller list.
David Haviland selected Jill Darragh’s The Case of the Distant Relative as the winner of this month’s IPR Agent’s Pick competition.
Andrew Lownie
Selected current Submissions
Nicholas Best continues his series of snapshot evocations of critical periods of history, through the lives of dozens of famous people, by looking at the seven days around Pearl Harbour in Seven Days of Infamy.
Louise Chapman’s ghosted memoir of the intersex Joella Holliday She's A Boy.
Annys Darka’s inspirational memoir Raging
The memoirs of actor and singer Darren Day Day by Day
Jane Dismore’s Duchesses: Britain’s Duchesses in the twenty-first century in which ten living duchesses talk about their life and role and how a predecessor has inspired them.
Jacky Donovan’s memoir of her career as a dominatrix Just Desserts : Instant Whips and Dream Toppings full of revelations about her famous clients, including Cabinet Ministers and someone linked to Royal Family, which already has enormous serial interest.
Michael Du Preez’s life of the Victorian doctor revealed on death to have been male Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time
Eleanor Fitzsimon’s Wilde's Women which explores the many rewarding relationships that the writer Oscar Wilde enjoyed with a series of fascinating and accomplished women throughout his life.
Glyn Gowan’s revisionist biography , Prince George: Duke of Kent, which reassesses the reputation of George V’s most handsome, glamorous and cultured son.
Martin Hammond’s Ask a Silly Question: Messages from eBay's most troublesome customer, a collection of stupidly funny and completely genuine email exchanges between the quirky Fredrick Facedass and the online sellers of eBay.
Gerry Harrison’s edition of the diaries of his Great Uncle who was killed on the Somme The Great War Diaries of Charlie May
Catherine Hewitt’s biography of the nineteenth century French courtesan Valtesse de la Bigne: A Courtesan’s Conquest of Paris
Tom Hughes’s account of a Victorian political and sexual scandal Blackguard
Sunday Times’s film critic Iain Johnstone’s memoir of his Close Encounters with Hollywood actors from John Wayne and Barbra Streisand to Christopher Reeve and Pierce Brosnan.
Diana Kader’s Hear My Cry - the true story of a Yemeni/British woman, Diana Kader, who successfully resisted a forced marriage whilst on a dream holiday to the Yemen and two attempts on her life by her spurned suitor.
Sean Longden’s Deliver us from Evil:: The Liberation of the Concentration Camps, 1945.
The memoirs of female private investigator Gina Negus The Lady Detectives
Desmond Seward’s story of a famous literary house and its visitors Renishaw and the Sitwells
Gary Smith’s Duped by Data a collection of dozens of examples of tortuous reasoning,
Mandy Smith’s Cabin Fever a raunchy and hilarious, account of what it’s like to be a stewardess in the modern world of air travel. ANZ rights sold.
Natacha Tormey’s memoir The Family: a childhood born into a religious cult.
Lee Trimble’s biography of his father Fighting Bastard of the Ukraine: The Story of Captain Robert M. Trimble which tells the extraordinary World War Two story of an US pilot who covertly smuggled over a thousand people to freedom, including American POWs, foreign slave labourers and concentration camp inmates from his airbase in the Ukraine.
The memoirs of real life Ace Ventura Tom Watkins, who runs Europe’s largest, and most successful, pet detective agency ,Tails of a Pet Detective.
Denise Williams’ s memoir The Ultimate Agony: A mother's story of losing her sons to their murderous father
Chris Woodford’s Atoms Under the Floorboards: The Secret Science Hidden in Your Home an exploration of the science of everyday life which picks out the fascinating and surprising scientific explanations behind a variety of very common (and often entertainingly mundane) household phenomena, from gurgling drains and squeaky floorboards to rubbery custard and shiny shoes.
David Haviland
Non-Fiction Submissions
Matt Shoard’s Thin Wild Mercury: The Voice of Bob Dylan, a collection of essays by Dylan fans including Paul Morley, George Galloway MP, and AL Kennedy.
Fiction Submissions
Kidon, an epic wartime revenge drama by Robert Dickinson, which unfolds over the course of three major twentieth century conflicts.
Dominic Adler’s hard-boiled thriller The Ninth Circle, featuring reluctant assassin Cal Winter and his enigmatic employers The Firm.
The Art of Letting Go a thoughtful and surprising drama about art and artifice by award-winning debut novelist Chloe Banks.
Warwick Cairns’ action-packed historical romp The Fall, set during the English Civil War.
Paul Callan’s The Dulang Washer, a powerful historical novel set in the tin mines of 19th century Malaya. Longlisted for the prestigious IMPAC Literary Award.
Weep No More, a romantic saga set against the sweep of history, in the tradition of James Clavell, Noel Barber and Colleen McCullough, by bestselling novelist Marius Gabriel.
Casey Kelleher’s gritty sink estate crime novel, in the tradition of Martina Cole, Rise and Fall
Louisa Treger’s literary novel The Lodger, which tells the story of the passionate affair between writer Dorothy Richardson and H. G. Wells. US rights sold to St Martin’s Press.
Mungo Lyon and the Adventure of the Double Headed Eagle, an old-fashioned spy thriller by Stephen O’Rourke, in the style of John Buchan.
September Titles
Jeremy Clay’s The Burglar Caught By A Skeleton and Other Singular Stories from the Victorian Press.
Bobby Friedman’s Democracy Ltd: How money and donations have corrupted British politics.
Cathy Glass’s Will You Love Me?: Lucy's Story
Spencer Matthews’s Confessions of a Chelsea Boy: : The Autobiography
Mark Peel’s Shirley Williams
Paperbacks of Patrick Dillon’s The Story of Britain
Kerry Katona’s Still Standing: The autobiography(pb)
US edition of Cathy Glass’s Another Forgotten Child
Articles
Why I Write by Lynne Barrett-Lee
The Ghost in the (Historical) Machine in which novelist and historian M.J. Trow explains how he help bring memoirs and history books alive when he is called in to ghost write them.
Best wishes, Andrew Lownie and David Haviland
