NEWS

WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE Film Rights Sold
We are excited to announce that Joan G. Robinson’s wonderful children’s classic WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE will be adapted for the big screen by Studio Ghibli, to be released in Japan in the autumn. Ghibli have previously made beautiful screen versions of SPIRITED AWAY and HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE, among many others.  won best drama in the regional Royal Television Society Awards in March 2014

Michael Bond PADDINGTON BEAR
You will soon be able to see the wonderful adventures of Paddington Bear on the big screen, with a film to be released in November 2014! It stars Colin Firth as Paddington, Hugh Bonneville as Mr Brown, Nicole Kidman as an evil taxidermist, along with a fantastic supporting cast including Julie Walters, Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent.

Ann Cleeves TV adaptations
The TV adaptation of VERA won best drama in the regional Royal Television Society Awards in March 2014 and is now back for a fourth season. Detective Vera Stanhope is played by the wonderful Brenda Blethyn in the series.

Close of the heels of the airing of the second season of Ann Cleaves' acclaimed SHETLAND series, the BBC have also announced that filming will start for a third season in 2015, once again starring Douglas Henshall as Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez.

Benjamin Myers PIG IRON wins prize
Benjamin Myers has won the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize with his novel, PIG IRON (Bluemoose Books) at a special event at the Durham Book Festival on October 19th. The prize was judged by novelist David Peace, journalist Deborah Orr, and broadcaster and author Mark Lawson. 

Deborah Orr said: “In PIG IRON, Benjamin Myers most recent novel, I think we have alighted on a work that captures the spirit of the Gordon Burn Prize perfectly.” 

Read the full press release on the New Writing North website.


Adrian Barns NOD film rights sold
We are delighted to announce that FOX have bought the TV and Film rights for NOD (Bluemoose Books). Chernin Entertainment have optioned the US TV rights for a 12 part series. 

"The apocalypse comes in many forms, but none stranger than that of the chronic sleep deprivation that leads to mass psychosis in Adrian Barnes's audacious novel Nod. Paul is a misanthropic hack writing a non-fiction book about obscure words when the world is afflicted and the majority of citizens begin to hallucinate solipsistic realities that Paul, as a Sleeper and a wordsmith, can influence. Barnes employs this brilliant idea to explore the nature of perception, redemption, and personal and social catastrophe. Outstanding." Eric Brown, The Guardian



 

NEW TITLES

Heidi James WOUNDING 
A wonderful debut novel. Cora has everything a woman is supposed to want: a career, a caring husband, children and a stylish home. Desperate for release and burdened with guilt, she falls into a pattern of ever increasing self-harm and sexual degradation until a one night stand tips her over the edge and she finds herself in a dominatrix's dungeon. WOUNDING explores a woman's search for redemption, identity and truth.

““I still have more thinking to do on it - the sign of a very special book. It's so gripping, beautifully written, unique.” ” –Julia May, Australian journalist with 'The Age'

Representing: Everywhere


Kath Staincliffe LETTERS TO MY DAUGHTER’S KILLER 
Can we really forgive those who do us the gravest wrong? Grandmother Ruth Sutton writes to the man she hates more than anyone else on the planet: the man she believes killed her daughter Lizzie in a brutal attack four years earlier. Ruth’s burden of grief and hatred has only grown heavier with the passing of time, her desire for vengeance ever stronger. In writing to him she hopes to exorcise the corrosive emotions that are destroying her life, to find the truth and, with it, release and a way forward. Whether she can ever truly forgive him is another matter – but the letters are her last, best hope. LETTERS TO MY DAUGHTER’S KILLER exposes the aftermath of violent crime for an ordinary family and explores fundamental questions of crime and punishment. How do we deal with the very human desire for revenge? If we get justice does reconciliation follow? Can we really forgive those who take away what we hold most dear? Could you?

Cath is the author of compelling and acutely observed novels exploring the human impact of crime. She is also a TV scriptwriter, creator of ITV’s Blue Murder series (starring Caroline Quentin), author of three acclaimed novels based on the hugely successful ITV crime drama series Scott and Bailey (Transworld) and a founder member of the Murder Squad (www.murdersquad.co.uk).

“It’s always exciting to see a writer get better and better, and Cath Staincliffe is doing just that.” – Val McDermid

Representing: Eastern Europe

Joan DeJean HOW PARIS BECAME PARIS
LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST SELLER!
Everyone recognises Paris as a magical city but may not know that it became the first modern city in the 17th century. The future became the focal point and Parisians developed visionary ways to adjust, such as establishing the first public transport and first intra-city mail systems. The introduction of street lighting enabled Parisians (unlike anyone else across the globe) to enjoy theatre, dining out, shopping (at the first ever boutiques and shopping arcades) well into the night. These developments attracted people, as residents and tourists, and gave rise to the anonymity of urban life, so familiar today. A new class rose up, based not on birth but on financial stature bringing with it the development of complex financial in-struments and the earliest versions paper money. While other cities across Europe may have been centres of trade, Paris created and defined the urban experience –in the most dazzling and enchanting way!
 
“A charismatic and knowledgeable narrator… With panache and examples from primary sources, guidebooks, maps, and paintings, she illustrates how Paris changed people’s conception of a city’s potential.” – Publishers Weekly

“[An] illuminating portrait of the first modern city, 17th-century Paris. DeJean obviously knows and loves Paris, and she provides a coherent history that effectively explains the evolution of a city built by a few prescient men” – Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Representing: Eastern Europe, Chinese and Russian rights already sold.


Nick Thorpe THE DANUBE: A Journey Upriver from the Black Sea to the Black Forest
The magnificent Danube both cuts across and connects central Europe. Travelling its full length from east to west, against the river's flow, Thorpe embarks on an inspiring year-long journey that leads to a new perspective on Europe today. Thorpe's account is personal, conversational, funny, immediate and uniquely observant - everything a reader expects in the best travel writing. Immersing himself in the Danube's waters during daily morning swims, Thorpe likewise becomes immersed in the histories of the lands linked by the river. He observes the river's ecological conditions, some discouraging and others hopeful, and encounters archaeological remains that whisper of human communities sustained by the river over eight millennia. Most fascinating of all are the ordinary and extraordinary people along the way - the ferrymen and fisher-men, workers in the fields, shopkeepers, beekeepers, waitresses, smugglers and border policemen, legal and illegal immigrants, and many more. For readers who anticipate their own journeys on the Danube, as well as those who only dream of seeing the great river, this book will be a unique and treasured guide.
Nick Thorpe is East and Central European Correspondent for the BBC, a journalist and film-maker.
 
“A charismatic and knowledgeable narrator… With panache and examples from primary sources, guidebooks, maps, and paintings, she illustrates how Paris changed people’s conception of a city’s potential.” – Publishers Weekly

“In this leisurely amalgam of travelogue and history, Nick Thorpe . . . has done the Danube and its ancient people proud” – Ian Thomson, The Sunday Telegraph

Representing: Eastern Europe, Polish rights already sold.