June news update
Lots of news from Ampersand towers this sunny June:
To begin, U.S. rights to Jin Yong’s Legends of the Condor Heroes, translated by Anna Holmwood, have been acquired by St Martin’s Press, giving American readers the opportunity to enjoy the classic stories of China’s best-selling living novelist.
Elsewhere, The Big Yank, Sean O’Driscoll’s astonishing account of American trucker David Rupert’s successful infiltration of the Real IRA, will soon be published by Mirror Books.
The indefatigable Cora Harrison has started two new series: The Gaslight Mysteries feature Victorian novelists Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens investigating murders together (Severn House); and The Willowgrove Mysteries (Sapere Books) are set in Kent in the 1990s.
Rachel Lynch has just signed a new three-book contract with Canelo to continue her series of murders in the Lake District investigated by local girl D I Kelly Porter.
And lastly, Baby Blue by Pol Koutsakis has received a starred review in Publishers Weekly: “The streets of Athens prove as mean as those of Raymond Chandler’s LA in Koutsakis’s brilliant second noir featuring Stratos Gazis…While the plotting matches James Elroy’s best work, Koutsakis does a better job of making the twists flow organically from the characters.” As his publisher, Bitter Lemon Press, commented, “It doesn’t get better than that!”
More news on several further deals will follow soon, to continue what looks to be a record-breaking year for the agency.
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