Helen FitzGerald

My wonderful, twisted, noir author Helen FitzGerald featured in the Independent

RAFT RIGHTS GUIDE

The current rights guide for Raft's fiction, non-fiction and YA fiction titles can be found HERE

THE SEX DIARIES by Bettina Arndt bought by Hamlyn

Jo Hemmings at Hamlyn has bought the World English Language rights (excluding ANZ) to THE SEX DIARIES by Bettina Arndt. It is an astonishing expose showing how ordinary couples cope with the tensions of managing their sex lives, by a leading and internationally recognised commentator on sex and sexuality. It's a book that will have both a serious and a significant mainstream commercial audience.

Ninety eight couples spent up to a year keeping diaries recording the intimate details of their negotiations over their sexual encounters. The result is a challenging, thought-provoking analysis of desire, showing how men and women cope with their distinctly different libidos. Men’s frustrations pour out in a howl of disappointment and anger. Many feel duped, stunned that their needs are so totally ignored. The female diaries reveal what it is like to live with a fragile, distractible libido which gets wrapped up in all the garbage of the day, with everyday tensions and resentments dampening desire. Through the power of his-and-hers diaries, we get to see what happens day by day, night by night, as the couples negotiate their way through these complex issues.

The Author, Bettina Arndt, started her career as Down-Under’s Dr Ruth. A trained clinical psychologist, she was one of Australia’s first sex therapists, talking about sex on television and radio as well as teaching medical students and other professionals. Having moved on to become a respected, out-spoken social commentator, it was Arndt’s high profile that attracted so many people willing to bare all in her diary project.

THE SEX DIARIES is already a very hot property in Arndt's native Australia. Melbourne University Press bought the ANZ rights to the book with a $100,000.00 bid in a hotly contested auction and since its March 2009 publication the book has dominated the Australian media.

Hamlyn will publish in the UK in August 2009.

GLASSHOPPER by Isabel Ashdown bought by Myriad Editions

As their first acquisition after receiving Arts Council England funding to develop their fiction list, Myriad Editions in Brighton www.myriadeditions.com have bought UK/Commonwealth rights to the first novel by Isabel Ashdown.

Isabel is a very exciting new voice - early samples from GLASSHOPPER won the 2008 Mail on Sunday novel prize and we have had a huge amount of interest in the book.

GLASSHOPPER is partly set in the suburban disorder of 1980s England, 13 year old Jake ponders the question of his paternity. Whilst he outwardly shrugs off his mother’s drunken ramblings, the question hangs over him like an invisible spectre. Jake’s personal odyssey takes him from the terraced streets of Portsmouth to the French Dordogne where he unwittingly stumbles across the long-held secrets of another generation.

As the narrative alternates between Jake and his mother's youth in the 1960s, GLASSHOPPER reflects on the powerlessness of childhood whilst celebrating the enduring optimism of youth, even in the face of tragedy.

Isabel Ashdown is a very impressive writer, deftly maintaining the tension of the story at the same time as creating a subtle evocation of both place and the past.

Isabel left her job in senior management in the cosmetics industry to write. In 2007 she completed a creative writing degree at Chichester University with first class honours, and received the Hugo Donnelly Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement. Glasshopper is her debut novel, an extract of which won first prize in the 2008 Mail on Sunday Novel Competition (Judges: Sir John Mortimer, Fay Weldon & Michael Ridpath). Her short story 'Following Some Disgrace’ wasGold winner in the Johnston Press Author v Author regional awards 2008. Isabel is now completing an MA in creative writing, and has started work on her second novel.

I have a full, final manuscript for GLASSHOPPER available - please email Adrian Weston at Raft adrian@raftpr.com for more information

YOU CAN BE AS YOUNG AS YOU THINK - Tim Drake & Chris Middleton

Cover artwork from Pearson for the Drake & Middleton title YOU CAN BE AS YOUNG AS YOU THINK which we originally presented as BOTOX FOR THE BRAIN last year. This is now sold in the UK/Commonwealth as a lead title on the Pearson Life imprint, in Brazil to Ediouro and in the Netherlands to Spectrum. The book is fantastic and should be a major title. It looks at Brain Age - and what to do about it ....

FIRST EMPEROR: TALES FROM THE JADE ROOM

I've just taken a début novel onto my list called FIRST EMPEROR: TALES FROM THE JADE ROOM by the Boston-based author Conrad Squires. The novel chronicles the rise and fall of Ch’in Shih-huang-ti—the creator of the China we know today—through stories furtively told by his most ‘trusted’ private servants, his eunuchs, in a secret hideout called the Jade Room.

Unobserved but observant, these half-men saw all the lies and the half-truths, the deceits and the trickery of the Ch'in court. Eager for mankind to know exactly what happened to the being their world called First Emperor, the most powerful mortal of all time, they left their tales, for ‘truth’ and posterity, on bamboo strips. The writing is quite sparse and direct giving it an effective but understated edge.

The book has come to me from Marshall Cavendish Singapore where it is the lead title for their new trade fiction list publishing into the S E Asian English Language market. I'm handling World English Language excluding Asia & ANZ. The edited manuscript is in.

Contact Adrian Weston: adrian@raftpr.com if you are interested

Clare Sudbery - German edition.

We've just received the artwork for Random House Germany's edition of Clare Sudbery's dark satire which they are publishing in July 2009. We've been presenting the book under the title DANCE YOUR WAY TO PSYCHIC SEX which has morphed in German into Liebeszauber mit Hindernissen which I think translates roughly as Love-Magic Surprise, or something like that! My German is rusty in the extreme ... anyway, you can take a look at their alchemic cover at the Amazon Germany Page for the book...

I do love seeing the way different territories approach book design, and this really does feel very different from the kind of approach I'd expect from a UK or US house. On which subject, I'm just beginning a new round of submissions for the book - so if you would like to see the manuscript let me know. To quote myself (or my rights guide!) it is ....

A darkly comic novel about difficult neighbours, love, jealousy, revenge and most of all Psychic Dancing ... It tells the story of Henrietta, an up-tight single parent whose new neighbours, a loved-up sex therapist Tawny and her elderly 'magician' partner (Gandalf aka Gerry), are aiming to get a lot closer to her than she is entirely comfortable with. They are also huge fans and promoters of the massive new craze that's sweeping Britain: Psychic Dancing. As the popularity of Psychic Dancing grows, Henrietta finds herself sucked in to the lives of the people around her with dramatic personal consequences.

Rana Husseini: MURDER IN THE NAME OF HONOUR

The final, complete and outstanding manuscript for Rana Husseini's ground-breaking examination of so-called honour crimes, publishing in the UK and US with Oneworld is now in and available.

NEW POSTAL ADDRESS FOR RAFT

Please note that after a spectacular amount of delays from Royal Mail, I can finally confirm our new postal address.

From the 24th of November, 2008, all correspondence for both PR and Literary agency should be sent to:

RAFT PR Ltd
PO Box 5226
Brighton BN50 9YN
United Kingdom

The agency's phone number is now:

(+44) 1273 557 667

The web site continues to be at RAFT PR