Doubleday snares award-winning Sean Lusk’s ‘gripping’ historical thriller
Doubleday has acquired No Place for Us, a “gripping” historical thriller by Sean Lusk about three men whose lives are shaped by the rise of fascism and dictatorship in the early 1930s.
One is a reluctant secretary to the capricious but highly ruthless Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo; another is a young Jewish magician fleeing Nazi persecution; the third, his brother, becomes involved in a perilous world of espionage when he meets a mysterious American journalist in Paris.
Their lives become entangled when, following the brutal massacre of Haitians, Trujillo hatches a plan to ‘whiten’ the Dominican Republic by inviting Jewish refugees to live there. With Hitler’s advance through Europe making no place safe, each character will find out what it truly takes to stand up to a tyrant. Kirsty Dunseath, publisher at Doubleday, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in a two-book deal from David Headley. Publication is scheduled for February 2027.
Lusk’s debut, The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley, was a BBC2 Between the Covers pick, a Sunday Times Historical Fiction Book of the Month, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize and the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. His second novel, A Woman of Opinion, won Fiction Book of the Year at the Saltire Book Awards. He is also an award-winning short story writer, winner of the Manchester Fiction Prize, the Fish Short Story Prize and the HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition.
Lusk said: “I’ve always been fascinated by stories that history has overlooked, and first stumbled across the astonishing story of ’Trujillo’s Jews’ some 20 years ago. It was at about the same time that I discovered letters my mother, herself a refugee, had written as she sought safety from persecution. With its lessons in tyranny, the perils refugees endure and in its warnings for the present day, I simply knew I had to find a way to bring the story to the page. I am thrilled that the team at Doubleday will be bringing it to readers.”
Headley added: “When I first read No Place for Us, I knew instantly that it was something special. Sean has uncovered a remarkable chapter of history that I knew very little about, yet from the very first page I was completely captivated. He combines meticulous research with extraordinary storytelling to create a novel that is both thrilling and deeply moving. Sean is one of the finest historical novelists writing today, and I genuinely believe this is the book that will introduce him to a much wider readership. I have no doubt that No Place for Us will be his breakout novel.”
Dunseath said of the acquisition: "Sean is already a prize-winning author, but I honestly believe this is Sean’s most exciting novel yet, and it marks a new direction for him. It’s a truly thrilling read, bringing to light a bizarre moment in history, but also asking profound questions about human courage and resistance.”
