THIS WEEK


The Lead Story London Book Fair 2023


Queer to stay: editors hail breakthrough in LGBTQ+ voices ahead of LBF 2023


Rights trading around this London Book Fair is set to heavily feature LGBTQ+ stories, historical fiction and romantasy as publishers respond to “uncertain and difficult times”


mes Lauren Brown @laurenrbrown95 F


antasy, romance and LGBTQ+ stories have been tipped to dominate at this year’s London Book Fair (LBF), with


history also popular across fiction and non- fiction, while evolution-themed books are a key science trend.


Liane-Louise Smith, rights director at Madeleine Milburn, called romantasy—the blend of fantasy and romance—“the word of the moment”, while noting a peaking interest in science fiction and fantasy across the board. Smith also anticipates a boom in historical fiction, and her agency has a hit on its hands with Harriet Constable’s 18th-century Venice- set Instrumental, based on the life of violinist


Trendwatch Putting the SF back into SFF F 06


antasy has long been the senior partner in Science Fiction & Fantasy in the UK


and that looks set to remain the case for the time being, certainly as long as Sarah J Maas-led, TikTok-boosted romantasy continues to surge. Thus far in 2023, “F” dominates in Nielsen’s BookScan’s SFF category, claiming the top 21 bestsellers— Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary is the first SF title, in 22nd place—and 44 spots in the top 50.


31st March 2023 Pre-LBF submissions are


certainly replete with fantasy, such as Alice Leow’s False Goddess (sold by Alice Sutherland-Hawes to Orbit) and Caroline Hardaker’s Mothtown (Johnson & Alcock’s Ed Wilson to Angry Robot). But the LBF Hotlist submissions


suggest there is also a growing appetite for SF titles, a climate perhaps helped by space-set streaming hits such as “The Mandalorian”. Arguably the most


and composer Anna Maria della Pietà, which has been sold in 14 territories. Smith added: “A lot of international editors are also on the look-out for upmarket fiction with a sweeping story, so I’m sure we’ll see some key titles emerge in that area.” Sweet Cherry publisher Sanjee de Silva echoed Smith in expecting a surge of SFF, LGBTQ+ and historical stories at LBF this year. De Silva added that in children’s, with the May release of Disney’s live-action remake of the “The Litle Mermaid”, “mermaids are going to be big”.


Litle, Brown commissioning editor Nadia Saward said that thanks to the popularit of romantasy on TikTok, the publisher has seen a number of submissions in the genre. Yet the romantasy she is being offered “tends to be a litle tamer than what is being self-published” and she “hopes to see more spicy, fantasy romance in my inbox come LBF”. Saward added: “Dark academia is definitely a trend that is showing no signs of slowing down, and in its wake we are also seeing more light academia, in the vein of Orbit’s own Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, which has the same bookish themes [as dark academia] with a more whimsical touch.”


LGBTQ+ themes are a huge trend across the LBF Agents’ Hotlists (see LBF Preview, pp12-27) encompassing a number of genres including queer romantasy (Adi Denner’s The


notable is Betty Trask winner Natasha Pulley’s first foray into the genre with The Mars House, which Andrew Nurnberg’s Jenny Savill sold to Bloomsbury US; it is currently under offer in the UK. Other titles include Grace Curtis’


NATASHA PULLEY


Floating Hotel (“‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ in space”), sold by The Bent Agency’s Zoë Plant to Hodderscape; Will Piovano’s “The Martian meets ‘Knives Out’” Ares House, repped by Katie Greenstreet at Paper Literary; and former Forbidden Planet bookseller Maud Woolf’s Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock, acquired by Angry Robot from the North Literary Agency’s Lina Langlee.


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