The Borough Press triumphs in three-way auction for Cecilia Knapp's second novel

The Borough Press triumphed in a three-way auction for Lack, the latest novel by award-winning poet and novelist Cecilia Knapp. 

Deputy publishing director, Ann Bissell, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Becky Thomas at Lewinsohn Literary Agency, and the novel is set to be published May 2026.

Knapp won the Ruth Rendell Award in 2021 for her outstanding contribution to raising literacy levels in the UK. That same year she became the Young People’s Poet Laureate for London. 

Exploring themes of motherhood and motherlessness, the summary describes the novel as: “A study of grief, consumable womanhood, intimate relationships and self-worth (or lack thereof) in an increasingly precarious world.”

Following an unnamed woman, the protagonist soon starts to feel the ever-increasing pressure to become a mother. But she is full of doubt – how can she consider the enormity of new life when the world outside is burning? Moreover, there’s something wrong. A constant dull ache she is too frightened to investigate. And something darker still. Her life is deeply affected by the death of her mother, a sexual assault and a drawn-out affair.

Knapp said: “I’ve been trying to write this book for a long time as a way to find the language for the unique but all-too-common grief of losing a mother. But while writing, it became clear that this was also a means to explore and confront the immense pressure and uncertainty of contemporary womanhood and how these conditions are created and upheld by our current moment.”

Bissell said: “Cecilia has captured the interior of every woman teetering on the brink of motherhood in the age of social media and at an intensely frightening time to be alive. I have not seen this ambivalence drawn so insightfully and so beautifully, and what sets this novel apart is the lovely flashes of humour in both the everyday and the existential.”

She added: “Lack shows a maturity of both emotional understanding and craft – Cecilia is a deep thinker and a literary star on the rise, and we are so lucky to publish her and this exceptional new novel at The Borough Press.’