News
Piatkus wins Angel's Journal at auction
20.11.09 | Catherine Neilan
Piatkus has fought off competition from three other publishers to sign a two-book deal with a début author.
The first, The Guardian Angel’s Journal, is being pitched as a “super-lead” for 2011.
Emma Beswetherick, senior editor, bought UK and Commonwealth rights to two novels by début author Carolyn Jess-Cooke, excluding Canada, via Madeleine Buston at Darley Anderson. The deal was struck for a “very significant five-figure sum”.
The publisher described the title as “a stunning work of genre-bending fiction”, about a 42-year-old woman who dies and comes back to earth as her own guardian angel.
Beswetherick said the L,B team had been “swept away by the author’s amazing innovation”, and the “unusual premise” made it “perfect book club material”.
She added: “This is a novel about love, regret and hope and delves into that huge question of what we would change about the life we’ve already lived. It’s complex, intelligent but beautifully accessible and, with angels never so much in vogue, we’re delighted to be making this into our super-lead fiction title of 2011. Things like this don’t come along every day.”
Buston has sold rights in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Brazil, China, Russia, and has a US offer on the table.
