Author: Cole Sullivan

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Crow Moon – Suzy Aspley shortlisted for the McDermid Debut Award!

Suzy Aspley’s Crow Moon has been included on the inaugural shortlist for the McDermid Debut Award!

The shortlist for the inaugural McDermid Debut Award, named in recognition of world-famous crime writer Val McDermid, showcases six outstanding new voices writing across a broad range of subgenres from thrillers to cosy crime, locked room mysteries and historical crime.

Food writer, broadcaster and Master Chef star Orlando Murrin is shortlisted for Knife Skills for Beginners, a delicious mystery set in an exclusive residential cookery school in Belgravia. Another shortlisted novel with a culinary twist, Mrs Sidhu’s Dead and Scone by Suk Pannu introduces a mystery solving Indian caterer who is Slough’s answer to Miss Marple. Suk Pannu has written for much-loved TV comedy shows ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ and ‘The Kumars at No.42.’

Suzy Aspley, a former journalist who lives in Scotland, is nominated for Crow Moon, a chilling thriller centred around a mysterious disappearance, the first novel in the Martha Strangeways series. Daniel Aubrey, who also lives in Scotland, is shortlisted for Dark Island, a thriller about a neurodivergent reporter who uncovers a disturbing conspiracy after human remains are discovered on Orkney’s coast.

Manchester based Kuchenga Shenjé’s gripping historical crime novel The Library Thief explores identity and belonging as book binder’s daughter Florence sets out to uncover the dark mystery at the heart of a gothic mansion. A similarly unforgettable amateur sleuth features in Marie Tierney’s thriller Deadly Animals where a roadkill obsessed teenager embarks on a daring quest to unravel the truth behind the string of chilling deaths plaguing her Birmingham community.

Honouring internationally bestselling crime writer, Val McDermid, who helped to co-found the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in 2003 and whose dedication to fostering new voices in crime fiction through the New Blood panel is legendary, this new Award seeks to continue her legacy, celebrating and platforming the best debut crime writers in the UK. The Shortlist was selected by an academy of established crime and thriller authors and the Winner will be chosen by a panel of industry experts, without a public vote. All shortlisted authors receive a full weekend pass to the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and the Winner will receive a £500 cash prize.

Val McDermid said: ‘Curating the New Blood panel over twenty years exposed me to an extraordinary range of crime fiction I might otherwise have missed. I’m hoping that this new award will do the same for the army of avid readers out there looking for new talent.’

The full McDermid Debut Award 2024 shortlist (in alphabetical order by surname) is:

• Crow Moon by Suzy Aspley (Orenda Books)
• Dark Island by Daniel Aubrey (Harper Collins)
• Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin (Bantam, Transworld)
• Mrs Sidhu’s Dead and Scone by Suk Pannu (Harper Collins)
• The Library Thief by Kuchenga Shenjé (Sphere, Little Brown)
• Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney (Bonnier Books)

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18 May: European Writers’ Festival at the British Library – Andrey Kurkov in conversation with Luke Harding

Andrey Kurkov, author of Our Daily War, is the Special Guest at the 2024 European Writers’ Festival. The Festival takes place on the 18th and 19th of May at the British Library.

On the 18th of May at 6pm, Andrey will be in conversation with Luke Harding, the Guardian’s senior international correspondent, to discuss writing and war.

Tickets can be purchased from the British Library at https://www.seetickets.com/tour/european-writers-festival.

The full festival programme is available to view at http://europeanwriters.co.uk/events/.

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Orenda Books signs Essie Fox’s decadent, captivating historical thriller Dangerous

Orenda Books signs Essie Fox’s decadent, captivating historical thriller Dangerous

Karen Sullivan, publisher of Orenda Books, is delighted to announce the acquisition of World English Language rights for Essie Fox’s Dangerous, in a deal negotiated with David Headley at DHH Literary Agency.

The book opens in 1819, when the disgraced Lord Byron is living in exile in a palazzo on the Venetian Grand Canal with his menagerie of pets and an illegitimate daughter, revelling in the freedoms of the city. But when he is associated with the deaths of local women, found with wounds to their throats, and then a novel called The Vampyre is published under his name, rumours begin to spread that Byron may be the murderer…

Already convinced that his life is cursed, Byron is further dismayed to read the book and realise that the blood-sucking villain of the title has been based on his own tarnished reputation. As events escalate and tensions rise – and his own life is endangered, as well as those he holds most dear – Byron is forced to play detective, to discover who is really behind these heinous crimes. Meanwhile, the scandals of his own infamous past come back to haunt him…

Karen says, ‘Lord Byron is unquestionably one of the greatest-ever poets, his life marked and marred by scandal, as he defied societal norms and unapologetically pursued passion, his troubling misogyny as shocking then as it is today. And yet he remains a figure of some allure, his decadent lifestyle still paradoxically fascinating. Essie has dropped us into his opulent world, a lavishly described piece of historical fiction that is as dark and seductive as the reputation of the poet himself. The canals of Venice come alive, as Byron struggles to clear his name, and to find a murderer – or is it a vampire? – implicating and impersonating him.

‘Rich in gothic atmosphere and drawing on real events and characters from Byron’s life, Dangerous is a riveting, dazzling historical thriller, where fact and fiction collide, audacious crimes are committed, revenge and vampiric myths take centre stage, and passionate love affairs, imprisonment and the strange story of a mummified corpse on the monastery island of Lazzaro all build to a crescendo of suspicion and high-stakes mystery.

‘Byron’s character is uncannily drawn, his Venice both visceral and sumptuous, and Essie drops the reader straight into the heart of an extravagant mystery, a perilous investigation, and the threat of the supernatural hanging low over it all. Her language is elegant, pitch perfect, completely and utterly redolent of the age, of the man. I was transported, angered, saddened and entranced and completely gripped by this extraordinary book, with its unexpected flashes of wit, and on the 200th anniversary of his death, I can think of no better time to announce its publication.

‘Despise the man or adore him, readers will be enchanted by this fictional portrayal of an astonishing period of Byron’s life, and it is, quite simply, a masterpiece.’

Essie says, ‘I’m so delighted that Orenda will be publishing my first historical crime thriller – a fiction based on fact – and one that also reflects my passion for the gothic. It was a dream to imagine a memoir that reveals secrets of Byron’s life in Venice, in which his personal connection to a novel called The Vampyre threatens to trap him in a web of murderous deceits.’

David Headley says, ‘This is a timely book, a beautifully told story focusing on a strange and intriguing period of Byron’s life in Venice, reimagined as a truly captivating fictional mystery. In Essie’s hands, it’s simply magical.’

Dangerous, by Essie Fox, will be published in glorious hardback by Orenda Books, in April 2025. For more information, please contact Karen Sullivan: Karen@orendabooks.co.uk.