Hodder signs two by Kavanagh

Hodder & Stoughton has acquired two books by Marianne Kavanagh, a journalist and author whose previous novels were published by Australia’s Text Publishing.

Senior editor Ruth Tross acquired British and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Veronique Baxter at David Higham Associates, and will publish in hardback in spring 2017.

Set on the isolated Isle of Purbeck in Dorset during the Second World War and the late Victorian age, Should You Ask Me, which starts with the discovery of two corpses, is “sweeping, tragic yet uplifting, and completely compelling”, Tross said.