Tor signs Lam in six-figure deal

Tor UK’s Julie Crisp has pre-empted World English Language rights for a new novel called False Hearts and an untitled novel by Laura Lam from Juliet Mushens at The Agency Group in a six figure deal.
 
Crisp, editorial director at Pan Macmillan, said: “I was completely hooked from the first page by Laura’s writing. To me it was like reading Hunger Games meets "Blade Runner" meets The Shining Girls. Thrilling, addictive and completely page-turning.”
 
The novel begins in Mana’s Hearth, a retreat that’s closed off from the rest of society and denied access to technology or modern medicine, where twin sisters Taema and Tila dream of a life beyond the walls of the compound. When their lives are threatened they finally manage escape to San Francisco and a life that’s beyond anything they could have imagined. Ten years later, Tila returns to the twins’ home in the city, terrified and covered in blood, just before the police arrive and arrest her for murder in the first homicide by a civilian in decades. Taema is given a proposition: go undercover as her sister and perhaps save her twin’s life.
 
Mushens described the book as “an adrenaline-fuelled thriller, packed full of twists and turns with a compelling heroine at its heart”.
 
Lam was raised near San Francisco, California. She relocated to Scotland to be with her husband, whom she met on the internet when he insulted her taste in books. She said of the deal: “This year has been a rollercoaster, and this is definitely one of the highest highs."
 
Macmillan will publish False Hearts in January 2016.