Val McDermid and Jo Sharp pen 'revelatory' Darkland Tale for Polygon
Polygon has acquired This Door of the Seas by Jo Sharp and Val McDermid, the next title in the publisher’s Darkland Tales series.
Editor-at-large James Crawford bought UK and Commonwealth excluding Canada rights from Lizzy Kremer at David Higham Associates, with publication scheduled for August 2026.
This Door of the Seas will be the seventh book in the Darkland Tales series, in which Scottish authors reimagine key moments from Scottish history, myth and legend. Previous titles include Rizzio by Denise Mina, Hex by Jenni Fagan, Nothing Left to Fear from Hell by Alan Warner, Columba’s Bones by David Greig, Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid, and, most recently, Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet.
Of This Door of the Seas, Polygon says: “The Darien Venture was the singular event at the end of the 17th century that fundamentally altered Scotland’s future. It took place on the other side of the world, amid the jungle coastline at the junction between the continents of North and South America. And most of us know next to nothing about it.
“Now it’s time to remedy that. Award-winning novelist Val McDermid and Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp unite in this revelatory novella to trace the story of Scotland’s only trading colony, which turned from a dream of prosperity to a nightmare that bankrupted an already impoverished nation and propelled it towards political union with England.”
Written as a series of letters home from expedition scientist Dr James Wallace to his wife Eliza and Sir Robert Sibbald, the first Geographer Royal, the epistolary tale offers “a devastating account of the forces that doomed the endeavour and completely changed the history of the British Isles in the process.”
This Door of the Seas will be the first co-authored book for civil partners McDermid and Sharp.
