Abigail Avis’ Wet Ink goes to Hodder & Stoughton in ‘major’ six-figure deal
Hodder & Stoughton has acquired Wet Ink, a “striking, smart and sensual” bookclub novel that blends women’s liberation with a joyful celebration of desire, from writer Abigail Avis, in a “highly-competitive” four-way auction and “major” six-figure deal.
Publishing in spring 2027, Wet Ink will be a lead title for Hodder. Lucy Stewart, deputy publishing director, and Jo Dickinson, executive publisher, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, in a deal struck with Hayley Steed at Janklow & Nesbit.
In the US, Wet Ink sold to Cassidy Sachs at Dutton at auction. Rights have also gone in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Greece, Poland, Spain and Lithuania, and are currently under offer in Romania, Hungary, Ukraine and Portugal.
Wet Ink is described as “an empowering, timeless story about self-discovery, embracing ambition and friendship, and speaks to the different shades of desire alive in each of us”.
The book revolves around housewife and mother-of-two Mitzy who is "tired of the stifling monotony of her everyday life". To help make ends meet, she hosts Tupperware parties, selling "plastic promises of the perfect home. But her true escape has always been the written word; scribbling erotic fantasies in her journal each night to soothe the ache of a loveless marriage, slipping them – under the psuedonym Queen B – erotic stories into Tupperware containers for her paying friends. Soon she is dreaming of a different kind of life.."
Avis is based in London and has two young children; the idea for the novel came to her during on of her children’s midnght feeds. She studied and taught English literature before entering a fellowship with The Royal Literary Fund. She is a writing coach with the London Writers’ Salon and has tutored at the Faber Academy and Jericho Writers, among others.
Avis said: “[Mitzy’s] story is one that I see across generations of women and I am delighted and moved that it has reminded so many of the women in their families who held quiet but powerful revolutions within their own domestic spheres.”
Steed added: “I’ve never seen a reaction to a book like I have to Wet Ink – within mere hours we were turning down international pre-empts and it has broken agency records around the globe. Abigail has written a book that encapsulates the perfect bookclub read; an empowering call to arms, a warm story of female community and friendship, and just the right amount of naughtiness with its snippets of erotica.”
Stewart said: “Abigail has truly created the perfect bookclub novel, combining bigger questions around motherhood, identity outside the home, and the power to be found in female communities with everyone’s favourite topic: desire. It’s a book that I know people won’t be able to close without passing it on to everyone around them.”
