Debut The Flames to Doubleday in 'major' six-figure pre-empt

Doubleday has acquired debut novel The Flames about four women "muses" who inspired artist Egon Schiele, in a "major" six-figure pre-empt. 

Publishing on Transworld's Doubleday imprint in hardback in early 2022, the book's author Sophie Haydock is a freelance journalist and editor who also works as a digital editor for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and is associate director of the Word Factory short story organisation.

The deal is the first that Juliet Mushens has done with her new agency, Mushens Entertainment, since parting ways with literary agent Robert Caskie. Publishing director of Doubleday Kirsty Dunseath acquired world rights in The Flames—plus a further novel about Matisse—by Haydock via Mushens at Mushens Entertainment.

The debut "transports the reader to the fading glamour and glory of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century". Haydock originally submitted to Mushens via the slushpile, and she loved the novel so much she read it on holiday, she said.

Telling the story of the four very different muses who posed for the "charismatic" and "controversial" artist–Adele, Gertrude, Vally and Edith–the synopsis reads: "With Egon Schiele poised on the brink of international success and the threat of war drawing closer, each woman attempts to write her own future until an act of betrayal changes everything."

Haydock, who has written previously about Schiele for the Royal Academy Magazine and Sotheby’s, submitted The Flames to the 2018 Impress Prize for New Writers and won. In the same year, the opening sections of the novel were longlisted for the Retreat West First Chapter and shortlisted for the PENfro Book Festival’s First Chapter Competition. Her Instagram account @egonschieleswomen meanwhile has an audience of 92,000 followers. 

Mushens said: "As soon as I started reading The Flames I was mesmerised—Sophie creates the world of Schiele, and his muses, so vividly, and with such evident love for the women she is writing about. Dramatic, scandalous, and gripping, this is a novel to savour."

Dunseath said: "It was an absolute joy to read this brilliant, evocative novel. I was immediately transported to the streets of Vienna and the intoxicating world of these four women and the artist with whom their lives became entangled. Sophie Haydock has such a talent for bringing this world to vivid life and her characters sing off the page. I’m absolutely delighted to be welcoming her to the Doubleday list and excited about her future."

"To be working with such an exceptional team to bring this novel into the world is a dream come true," said Haydock. "I'm delighted that Kirsty and all those at Doubleday have fallen in love with the stories of the women who posed for Egon Schiele, and been moved by their troubled fates, which have gone untold for a century. Adele, Gertrude, Vally and Edith finally have the attention they deserve."

With Doubleday holding world rights, Lucy Beresford-Knox, the publisher's head of translation, said: "The rights team read this overnight and universally fell in love with its characters, and the novel’s evocative mix of art and scandal—we can’t wait to share it with publishers all over the world."