John Jarrold

Sun Color have acquired Taiwanese rights in The River Bank by Kij Johnson.

The deal was done by Gray Tan of the Grayhawk Agency on behalf of the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

The River Bank is a  comic adult sequel to The Wind in the Willows, which assumes that two female Animals come to live on the same river bank as Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger: a lady novelist, Beryl (who is a Mole), and her companion, the Rabbit. This of course disrupts the status quo, and the story ends up being a mix of high comedy and lyrical nature-pieces, very much in the late-Edwardian manner.

The author’s shorter fiction has won three Nebulas, three World Fantasy Awards, and a Hugo. She also writes for tabletop roleplaying games. Her  short stories and collections have been reprinted many times all over Europe and Asia. Her World Fantasy Award-winning novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe in 2016 was a successful reinvention of Lovecraft – and The River Bank is a satirical engagement with gender (and class). It is definitely not a children’s book!

Don D’Auria of Flame Tree Press has acquired World English rights in AN ECHO OF CHILDREN, the new novel by doyen of horror writers, Ramsey Campbell. The book will be published in 2025. The agent was John Jarrold.

Coral and Allan Clarendon have just moved to Barnwall with their young son Dean. It’s a seaside town on the Yorkshire coast that sounds ideal for children. Their house is a bargain, and even the local park is called Childer Field. If this commemorates the uncommon number of children who have died unnaturally in Barnwall throughout history, surely Dean must be safe with his parents. If the new friend only he can see is other than imaginary, surely it’s no threat to him.

Is Allan’s mother Jude seeing problems where there are none? Could the house itself be a source of peril? Allan and Coral seem to think so, since they call for an exorcism. It reminds Allan’s father Thom of a fatal instance of the ritual perpetrated not so many years ago in Barnwall…

Flame Tree have published Ramsey’s most recent novels, THE INCUBATIONS, THE LONELY LANDS, FELLSTONES, THE WISE FRIEND and SOMEBODY’S VOICE, as well as a number of his backlist titles.

Ramsey Campbell  is the only living horror writer to appear in the Oxford Companion to English Literature. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Liverpool John Moores University in 2015.

Film-maker, screenwriter, producer and novelist Guillermo del Toro has tweeted about Ramsey Campbell: “An absolute master of modern horror. And a damn fine writer at that.”

Christine Ebbs, Publishing Executive at Penguin Random House Australia, has clinched a three-book deal for Australian and New Zealand rights in the BROKEN CYCLE fantasy trilogy by Australian bookseller and influencer Bronte-Marie Wesson. The agent was John Jarrold.  The first book is due for publication early in 2026, with books two and three following at six-monthly intervals.

In November 2021, Bronte-Marie posted a video on TikTok describing the premise of THE BROKEN CYCLE series, which went viral, amassing 1.5 million views and 280,000 likes. She has a collective social following of 880,000 and has accrued 4.1 million views on a playlist documenting her progress writing the trilogy.

THE ASCENSION OF SOULS is the first book in the trilogy, a queer own-voices story that explores the last stand of a dying culture against a goliath empire, as well as the misfits who fall within the margins of history who try to grind an age old conflict to its end. A curse has trapped Loghar in an eternal war with their imperial neighbours, with central figures reincarnated in each generation to act out the tale. Luminara is a servant who has spent her whole life learning to go unseen, just another face amongst the hundreds who work in the kitchens. When her birthday celebrations coincide with that of the boy-king, the two strike up a serendipitous companionship that blooms into romance. Luminara  finds herself pulled into a realm of prophecy that is as ancient as her homeland and as her lover begins to take up his mantle in the war, she is forced to take a stance against him or watch the world around her turn to ash.

THE ASCENSION OF SOULS will appeal to readers who loved The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon and She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan.

Christine Ebbs said: “I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Bronte-Marie onto the Penguin Random House list. With The Ascension of Souls they have created an incredible new world and a cast of characters I immediately fell in love with. I can’t wait to introduce the Broken Cycle trilogy to the world!”

Hazel Holmes at UCLan Publishing has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in three new novels by author and illustrator Curtis Jobling. The agent was John Jarrold.

WYRDWOOD is a standalone YA novel, and RED TIDE BLACK HEART books 1 and 2 open a middle-grade series.

Curtis Jobling is the creator and designer of numerous hit children’s animated shows, including the BAFTA-winning ‘Bob the Builder’, ‘Raa Raa the Noisy Lion’ and ‘Frankenstein’s Cat’.

Although renowned for his work in film & TV, Curtis’s first love has always been horror and fantasy for older audiences. His acclaimed best-selling series of epic fantasy novels, ‘Wereworld’, was published by Penguin worldwide, while his darkly comic young adult thrillers, ‘Haunt: Dead Scared’ and ‘Haunt: Dead Wrong’ were published by Simon & Schuster in the UK. His middle-grade novels, ‘Max Helsing & The Thirteenth Curse’ and ‘Max Helsing & The Beast of Bone Creek’ are published by Viking in the US and Orchard in the UK.

The ‘Wereworld’ series of novels has been developed into a major new animated show for NETFLIX, produced by Lime Pictures and Jellyfish Pictures. Curtis has remained actively involved throughout the production, adapting all six novels as lead writer and associate producer. Titled ‘Wolf King’, the series will be broadcast globally by NETFLIX in 2024.

Curtis says: ‘I’m absolutely thrilled to be working with Hazel and her team at UCLan on these new titles. I’ve been looking to collaborate with UCLan for some time, and both of these properties are the perfect fit for this wonderful publishing house. Combining the themes of traditional fairy tales with the frights of contemporary folk horror, WYRDWOOD is Grimm Brothers meets Stranger Things, with a cast of characters that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Stephen King story. RED TIDE BLACK HEART is an epic historical fantasy, featuring a teenage shieldmaiden, a Pictish boy-king and a host of Norse monsters. It’s The Norseman meets The Odyssey for monster-loving, middle-grade readers.’

Hannu Rajaniemi’s new novel, DARKOME, will be published by Gollancz on September 5 2024. Since SUMMERLAND, Hannu has also been building HelixNano, a biotech startup augmenting the immune system’s power to fight disease with mRNA. At the start of the pandemic, he and his team refocused the company’s efforts on COVID. Now they have launched a clinical trial for a next-generation COVID vaccine in designed to generate strong responses in immunosuppressed individuals. (https://www.einpresswire.com/article/697341469/helixnano-s-subsidiary-helixnano-australia-receives-hrec-approval-to-initiate-a-phase-1-clinical-trial). HelixNano is also developing novel cancer vaccines, and has raised ~$70M USD from some of the world’s top investors including Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.

Hannu was already thinking about biology in the context of science fiction as well, but the pandemic experience transformed his thinking, both in his writing, and in what HelixNano is developing. The unique result was DARKOME, a near-future biotech thriller where a young woman discovers how to hack her own — and everyone’s — biology. But such power comes at a cost, and there are those who will stop at nothing to possess her secret.