Baskerville pre-empts 'Emmerdale' actress Jessie Elland’s haunted house debut

Jade Chandler, publishing director at Baskerville, John Murray Press, has snapped up UK and Commonwealth rights to Jessie Elland’s “captivatingly dark debut” The Ladie Upstairs, from Katie Greenstreet of Paper Literary.

Baskerville will release The Ladie Upstairs in hardback and first formats in May 2025, supported by a “suitably creepy and immersive marketing and publicity campaign”. Elland is best known for her role as Chloe on the TV soap “Emmerdale”.

The Ladie Upstairs follows scullery drudge Ann, who longs to become a lady’s maid. The synopsis says: “Ann can’t quite remember how or when she arrived at Ropner Hall. She loathes spending her days toiling in the dank kitchen, so when a chance meeting with Lady Charlotte leads to the opportunity to become her personal maid, Ann is convinced she has finally escaped her own version of hell. But has she? As Ann’s experience above stairs takes a sinister twist, will it turn out that the terrors lurking there are worse than the devils she knows below?”

Chandler said: “I was bewitched by Jessie’s darkly visceral, ambitious and provocative novel from the first page. The Ladie Upstairs is wholly original; it’s set in an unspecified historical period that feels deeply grounded as well as slippery to pin down. I love how Jessie explores the patriarchal horrors overlaid on the female body through the eerie space that is Ropner Hall, where the paintings watch her from the walls, and nothing is as it first seems. Her plotting is compelling while also turning everything we expect from a big historical house novel on its head.”

Elland added: “I couldn’t be happier to be working with the team at Baskerville! I was so inspired by Jade’s passion for The Ladie Upstairs, and as soon as I learnt that Baskerville pride themselves on publishing “books that haunt the imagination”, I knew my book had found its perfect home.”