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The debut novel from Little, Brown editor-in-chief Antonia Hodgson, The Devil in the Marshalsea (Hodder), out in March, is a "cracking thriller", according to The Bookseller's Tom Tivnan in this week's Author Profile.
The book, set in London in the 1700s, and featuring a bookseller/publisher as one of its characters, was signed by Hodder's Nick Sayer in a pre-Fair deal ahead of Frankfurt 2012.
Reflecting on the process of being an editor turned author, Hodgson admitted to The Bookseller that she “couldn’t sleep for a week” after the novel was sent out, and said the experience was “terrifying with a capital T”. But, she said, every editor should go through the submission process “just to understand the stress”.
The book features a publisher and bookseller who specialises in what we might now term pornography. Hodgson said that part of her research for the novel involved reading the porn of 1700s Britain, which she described as “absolutely filthy”.