Some Nice New Deals

Helen FitzGerald: Just a short update - the wonderful Wanda Gloude from AmboAnthos in Amsterdam has just bought Dutch language rights to Helen FitzGerald's fantastic fourth adult novel BLOODY WOMEN (Polygon) - which is a nice piece of news ....

Isabel Ashdown. Doris Engleke of Eichborn Verlag has just made a pre-empt (which has been accepted) for the German language rights to Isabel's graceful and poignant first novel GLASSHOPPER (Myriad) which has been going great guns in the UK after only a short time since launch.

Jonathan Kemp. The strong, dark and evocative novel of three eras of London's gay underbelly, LONDON TRIPTYCH, has been bought in the UK by the plucky newcomers on the scene Myriad Editions who have done so well for Isabel Ashdown. I'm really thrilled to have placed a second writer with them this year. LONDON TRIPTYCH is scheduled for Autumn 2010.

NOTORIOUS by Roberta Lowing

This has to be one of the most exciting moments of my year - beginning UK submissions for NOTORIOUS by Roberta Lowing, a truly extraordinary novel that has come to me via my remarkable Australian co-agent Gaby Naher.

In an Asylum deep in the North African desert, a scarred woman with no name is interrogated by an embittered Australian Embassy official. The only witnesses are a Polish nun and the Asylum’s French administrator, each with their own secrets.

Beyond the Asylum’s walls lies the desert: a blank page waiting to be written on or the burial ground for a thousand tragic stories?

As the wind calls up a deadly sandstorm, the inhabitants of the asylum at Abu N’af discover they are linked by a diary written by the world’s greatest poet.

The diary records the desolation and revelation experienced by revolutionary French poet Arthur Rimbaud when, in 1890, he was lost in the sacred empty of the Moroccan desert.

Over the next 120 years, everyone who sees the diary will want it. Most will do anything to posses it.

For Polish aristocrat Aleksander Walenzska, a ruthless looter and trafficker in people and art, the diary is a vital map of uncharted territory, and a valuable record of the watered caves discovered by Rimbaud deep in the desert.

For Walenzska’s troubled and religious son Czeslaw, the diary is a book of death, and an inescapable penance to be carried acrossEurope to Rimbaud’s family in France.

For Agnieska, Czeslaw’s sister, the diary is the book of the desert which, if returned to the desert, will create a religious community at Abu N’af and redeem her family’s name, Czeslaw’s death and her own drug-fuelled past.

For others, the diary has a pure monetary value. It is the key to new lives and new identities for Rosita, the Sicilian girl who was irrevocably marked by what she saw in her village during World War 2, and Rene Laforche, the Asylum administrator struggling to escape his family’s legacy.

For the Australian official code-named John Devlin, the diary is a book of
scribblings. Devlin is convinced that Rimbaud and poetry are irrelevant in a modern world of logic, and to his search for two priceless statuettes looted from the Baghdad Museum during the American invasion of Iraq.

To Devlin, the desert is not a place of revelation but the birthplace of modern terrorism.

Only the unnamed and scarred woman, who may be the daughter of a notorious art thief, sees the true worth of the book. Poisoned and dying in the asylum at Abu N’af, she realises that the story of Rimbaud’s experience of madness and divinity in the desert is a story of hope, just like the desert saints’ creation of communities in the wilderness or an author’s transformation of the blank page.

Before she travels into the desert, to confront Devlin and her family’s spectres, the unnamed woman re-interprets Rimbaud’s story of hope: that out of the wreckage of the most destructive obsessions rises the possibility of the greatest, living poem ever created.

Reminiscent of the worldwide bestseller The Shadow of the Wind (Spanish: La sombra del viento) by Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón, this is one of the most phenomenal pieces of fiction I have had the good fortune to read, let alone offer.

I am offering UK rights and some European translation rights, for more information contact Adrian Weston: adrian@raftpr.com

GLASSHOPPER Event in Brighton on Saturday

Alexandra Nichols: THE CASE OF THE MISSING BOYFRIEND

We've just taken on a new novelist called Alexandra Nichols. Her first book is a commercial women's fiction title that sits somewhere in between Sex and the City and Bridget Jones with a touch of My Best Friend's Wedding thrown in for good measure. It's sharp, well written and funny and it's called ...

The Case Of The Missing Boyfriend

C.C. is nearly forty and other than her name (which she hates so much she can’t bring herself to use it) everything about her life appears to be wonderful: she has a high powered job in advertising, a great flat in Primrose Hill, and a wild bunch of friends to spend her weekends with. And yet she feels like the Titanic – slowly, inexorably, and against all expectation, sinking.

For despite her indisputable success, C.C. would rather be shoveling shit on a farm than selling it to the masses – would rather be snuggling on the sofa with The Missing Boyfriend than playing star fag-hag in London’s latest coke-spots.

But opportunities to find The Missing Boyfriend are rarer than an original metaphor, and CC’s body-clock is ticking so loudly that at times she can barely hear her mother wittering about her own new Moroccan boyfriend.

Could her friends be right? Could her past really be preventing her from moving on? And if she unlocks that particular box, will the horrors within simply drift away and leave her free? Or will they sink her?

If she can shake off the past and learn to trust again, will she stop attracting freaks and find The Missing Boyfriend? Or will she just end up tethered and gagged at the bottom of the stairs?

Alexandra has a fresh and entertaining voice and lives in Nice in the South of France ... The full manuscript for the novel is now available from Adrian Weston at Raft: adrian@raftpr.com

ISABEL ASHDOWN AT THE JUBILEE LIBRARY on Thursday, October 29th ... Be there

Isabel Ashdown piece in The Guardian

A lovely dad, a terrible drunk

Isabel Ashdown's novel GLASSHOPPER (Myriad editions) which is getting such a tremendous response across the trade and the press at the moment deals with the story of an alcoholic mother Mary with much of the story told through the eyes of her thirteen year old son Jake. It is a very poised and poignant piece of writing.

Isabel has just published an extraordinary piece of journalism about her own experience of growing up with an alcoholic parent - albeit in a very different sort of family from the one in the novel. Her article in the Guardian also nicely illustrates the distinction between experiences feeding into a writer's vision and the rather lesser version where a writer is just calling their own life fiction. When I first read Isabel's novel I was blown away by the sophistication of her writing and now I am really impressed with her sensitivity and judgement...

GLASSHOPPER by Isabel Ashdown picking up more reviews

Really nice piece in today's Observer ...

Observer
"Tender and subtle, it explores difficult issues in deceptively easy prose... Across the decades, Ashdown tiptoes carefully through explosive family secrets. This is a wonderful debut – intelligent, understated and sensitive."

And here are some of the other recent pieces of coverage ...

Mail on Sunday
"An intelligent, beautifully observed coming-of-age story, packed with vivid characters and inch-perfect dialogue. Isabel Ashdown's storytelling skills are formidable; her human insights highly perceptive."

Waterstone's Books Quarterly
"An immaculately written novel with plenty of dark family secrets and gentle wit within. Recommended for book groups."

Sainsbury's Magazine
"A brilliant début."

Glamour
"This stirring coming-of-age novel evokes the strictures of the '50s and the tacky flamboyance of the '80s brilliantly. Narrated through 13-year-old Jake's eyes, it's a heartbreaking redemptive tale of family secrets that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster. Arm yourselves with a box of Kleenex as you'll be weeping into your pillow by the end."

Easy Living
"Carefully observed, unexpected and mesmerisingly beautiful."

Argus
"In Jake, Ashdown has created a beautifully realised character, totally believable as a 20th-century boy but imbued with qualities which should resonate with any reader and will surely stand the test of time...The prose is succinct and smooth, the dialogue crisp and convincing. An intriguing, atmospheric read with a healthy dollop of realism."

FOOD FOR FRIENDS - Goes to Infinite Ideas

Ahead of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Adrian Weston at Raft has closed a deal with Infinite Ideas publishing director Katherine Hieronymous for Jane & Ramin Mostowfi's first cookbook FOOR FOR FRIENDS.

FOOD FOR FRIENDS is an innovative cookbook from one of Britain’s landmark meat-free restaurants – FOOD FOR FRIENDS in Brighton. Bringing together a brand with over 25 years’ history, a huge customer base and an innovative and refreshing approach to both everyday and ‘occasion’ dining, this is a very significant addition to the cookery shelf. Based on the restaurant’s seasonal menus and daily specials FOOD FOR FRIENDS is an inspiring and practical approach to cooking for meat-free and special dietary requirements.

Ramin & Jane Mostowfi are husband and wife co-owners of FOOD FOR FRIENDS restaurant and bring an eclectic family mix of culinary traditions from Middle Eastern and Asian through to traditional British together in their fresh take on meat-free food.

This is an exciting time for FOOD FOR FRIENDS who will be launching their cookery school in 2010 as well as additional restaurants taking the restaurant's innovative approach to meat-free dining to other major UK cities.

www.foodforfriends.com