Baskerville signs Ashleigh Mounser’s ‘spine-chilling’ adult debut
The House at Hanger Hill, the “propulsive and deliciously dark thriller with gothic horror undertones” by Australian author Ashleigh Mounser, has been acquired by Baskerville, an imprint of John Murray Press.
Zulekhá Afzal, assistant editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Australia and New Zealand from Veronique Baxter at David Higham Associates, on behalf of Michaela McGuire at a4 Literary. Baskerville will publish The House at Hanger Hill in hardback in the UK in early 2027.
The novel has also been acquired for simultaneous publication by Beverley Cousins at Penguin Random House Australia (ANZ) via McGuire and by Catherine Richards at Minotaur Books/St Martin’s Press (North America) via Gráinne Fox at UTA.
The House at Hanger Hill is described as “a captivating psychological suspense novel in the vein of Gone Girl and Girl A, with shades of Shirley Jackson”. On the morning of her 18th birthday, Betty is approached by a police detective, the synopsis reads. He wants her help to solve a bizarre, decades-old mystery that occurred in her home. The only person who knows the truth is her mother – and Betty decides it is finally time to make her tell the story.
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Afzal said: “Ashleigh Mounser is such an exciting talent and I’m thrilled that Baskerville will be the UK home for her adult debut. The House at Hanger Hill is a brilliantly bold and haunting thriller that delves into the unravelling of a young woman’s psyche. Bursting with wild twists and turns, and delicately woven themes of memory loss, family secrets and generational trauma, it will leave readers thoroughly creeped out with its Gothic edge and gripped from beginning to end."
Mounser’s previous works include the middle-grade chapter-book How to Be Cooler Than the Moon (Ford Street Publishing) and feature film Questions and Comments. She has also been the recipient of several grants as well as the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Writer of the Year award.
Mounser said: “I wrote The House at Hanger Hill in the prolonged lockdowns of 2021, when I became interested in the horror of isolation, and the altering of self that can occur in seclusion. Inspired by thrillers with a pulsing gothic heart like Gone Girl, Charlotte McConaghy’s Once There Were Wolves and the work of Shirley Jackson, I set out to write a book that couldn’t be read the same way twice. I could not be happier or prouder that this twisty story resonated with the iconic Baskerville pack.”
