Publishing Deals

From Publishing News:

Patrick Janson-Smith, now happily installed at HarperCollins and back from being fêted in New York, has made his first buys for his Blue Door imprint. He has secured WEL rights from Judith Murdoch to Anne Berry's debut The Hungry Ghosts, a novel set mostly in 1960s Hong Kong and telling the story of Alice Safford, the unloved and unwanted third girl in a family of four siblings who becomes possessed by the angry ghost of a Chinese rape victim. Janson-Smith describes it as "an absolute stunner of a novel: a family saga with magical-realist overlays, beautifully written and compulsively readable”. Berry, who was born in Aden and grew up in Hong Kong, now lives in Surrey.

He has also bought EDS Dylan Thomas Prize-winner Rachel Trezise's novel Shades of Crazy, which will "do for Cardiff what Trainspotting did for Edinburgh". Hers is "a beguilingly original voice” and she writes about "the underbelly of society with both insight and humour”. Broo Doherty of Wade & Doherty was the agent, and the deal was for UK/Commonwealth.

Finally, Janson-Smith has acquired Dead Spy Running, "one of the classiest thrillers I've read in ages”. Bought from Claire Paterson of Janklow & Nesbit, it is the first of a series written by the Daily Telegraph's Jon Stock.