BOOKS


Frankfurt Book Fair 2024 Agents’ hotlists


42 M & P


Soul Searcher Anton Bilton “Dazzling” thriller about a Wall Street titan who loses his beautiful wife, and then goes on a scientific and psychedelic quest to reach her in the afterlife. Based, incredibly, on property tycoon Bilton’s own experience.


Agent Eugenie Furniss


The Wrecker’s Girl Alex Calloway On windswept coastal Cornwall, a mother dies in mysterious circumstances. Forensic psychologist Karenza Bray is then called upon to unravel the secrets.


Agent Eugenie Furniss Rights UK and Comm excl. Canada (HarperCollins), Russia (Vimbo), Poland (Czarna Owca), Germany (Droemer Knaur)


Death at the White Hart Chris Chibnall Crime début from “Broadchurch” creator Chibnall, centred around Dorset detective Nicola Bridge.


Agent Eugenie Furniss Rights UK and Comm excl. Canada (Michael Joseph), North America (Pam Dorman), Germany (Piper), Ukraine (Vivat)


Agents’ Hotlists The top scripts that might set the Buchmesse on fire


TheBookseller.com


After Ever After Hannah Luckett A young widow has to go back to the beautiful French village she and her husband used to live in to write the final chapter in her book on grief, while navigating her complicated feelings for her broodingly handsome ex-brother-in law.


Agent Emily MacDonald


Woke Up Like This Eleanor Tucker Witty rom-com


about a 40-something journalist who jumps at the opportunity to try a cutting-edge treatment, which promises to make you look 20 years younger. Will lack of lines make her happier, or is there more to life than taut skin?


Agent Emily MacDonald


The Agency


Girl, Ultra-Processed Amara Sage


A searing look at diet culture, the impossible beauty of AI images on social media, and all its ugly consequences, from the writer of Influential.


Agent Jessica Hare Rights World (Faber)


Handle with Care Louisa Reid “Stunning” YA novel told in prose and verse tells the story of Ruby, who gives birth at school not even knowing she was pregnant—and how she is let down by society and those who love her.


Agent Jessica Hare Rights World (Guppy)


The Wolf and His King Finn Longman “Spellbinding” queer fantasy retelling of the quintessential medieval werewolf romance of Bisclavret.


Agent Jessica Hare Rights World (Gollancz)


Six Queens Lydia Monks Monks brings to life six fascinating women in this spectacular, fully illustrated book about the Tudor queens with one thing in common: Henry VIII.


Agent Jessica Hare Rights World (Macmillan Children’s Books)


World of Wanda Karen McCombie “Beautiful” story about the stresses and successes of forming a new version of family, with an insight into ADHD; the difficulties, but also the unexpected gifts it can bring.


Agent Jessica Hare Rights UK and Commonwealth (UCLan), Danish (Gads Forlag)


A M Heath


A Very Vexing Murder Lucy Andrew “Whip-smart” cosy crime reimagining of Jane Austen’s Emma, in which Harriet, the gullible sidekick of Emma Woodhouse, is now a feisty


conwoman-turned- detective.


Agent Euan Torneycroft Rights UK (Corvus), US (Morrow)


The Heir Apparent Rebecca Armitage “The Princess Diaries meets Taylor Jenkins Reid” upmarket women’s fiction about a young aristocratic woman who has to choose between her duty and her heart.


Agent Victoria Hobbs Rights Australia and New Zealand (HarperCollins Australia)


A Bad, Bad Place Frances Crawford Glasgow 1979-set début about when, after 12-year- old Janey and her dog, Sid Vicious, find the body of a young woman on an abandoned railway line, she and grandmother must confront potential suspects and dark secrets.


Agents Oli Munson and Euan Torneycroft


Orbital


Samantha Harvey Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker, Harvey’s “spellbinding” novel revolves around six astronauts on-board the International Space Station.


Agent Anna Webber Rights UK (Cape), US (Grove Atlantic), German (dtv), Italian (NN Editore) and 12 others


Monarchia Florence H R Scott The historian behind the popular Substack post “Ælfgif-who?” tells the fascinating but forgotten stories of the queens instrumental in ruling the kingdoms of medieval England.


ACM


See Toby Mundy profile in The Bookseller 4th Oct issue, pp06-07.


Aitken Alexander


She Has Come Again Oyinkan Braithwaite The My Sister the Serial Killer author’s second novel centres on Eniiyi, who is so much the image of her dead aunt, Grandma West says she is, in


fact, her reincarnation. Can Eniiyi escape the family curse and the fate that befell her aunt?


Agent Clare Alexander Rights UK (Atlantic), US (Doubleday)


Moderation Elaine Castillo The America Is Not the Heart author’s newest is a “daring, wild ride” centring on social media moderator Girlie, who is transferred to a virtual reality theme park but discovers troubling truths about the company she works for… And worse: her boss might just be her type.


Agent Emma Paterson Rights UK (Atlantic), US (Viking)


Ingenious Lewis Dartnell The Origins and Being Human author explores the nature of human ingenuity spanning inventions, engineering, sport strategies, spycraft, competitive business strategy and creative ideas in marketing.


Agent Chris Wellbelove Rights UK (Bodley Head)


Days of Light Megan Hunter The prizewinner’s new novel begins on Easter Sunday in 1938 when, over one lunchtime, Ivy’s life changes forever; a story of death, unrequited love and faith “reminiscent of The Hours or The Stranger’s Child”.


Agent Emma Paterson Rights UK (Picador), US (Grove)


Permanence Sophie Mackintosh The Granta Best of Young British Novelists honouree’s newest centres on Clara and Francis, who have been having an affair for years and one morning awake to find themselves in a mysterious city where adulterers can live an ordinary life together, away from hotel rooms and stolen moments. But can their


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