Thynne revealed as author of Quercus' Widowland

Quercus has revealed that the identity of C J Carey, author of the dystopian thriller Widowland, is journalist and novelist Jane Thynne. The book will be published as its lead fiction release in June.

Thynne has opted to use a pseudonym for her latest novel because it marks a change of direction from her previous fiction. Her chosen nom de plume is her mother’s maiden name with her own initials reversed.

Thynne is the author of the series of historical novels featuring actress and agent Clara Vine, which began with Black Roses in 2013. Her other novels include Patrimony, published in 1997, The Shell House (1999), and The Weighing of the Heart (2010). She was married to fellow novelist Philip Kerr, who died in 2018.  

Announced last autumn, the new book is set in an alternative Nazi-ruled Britain, offering a portrait of what 1950s Britain might have been like as a German Protectorate, and following a protagonist employed by the state to rewrite literature to correct the views of the past.

Jane Wood, publisher at Quercus Fiction, bought UK and Commonwealth rights in the book from Caradoc King at United Agents, to whom the book is dedicated. Foreign rights have sold in France, Russia and Poland, and to Sourcebooks in the United States.

Widowland publishes with Quercus on 10th June.