Bloomsbury General lands ‘unique’ book club novel by Kate Fagan

Bloomsbury General has landed Kate Fagan’s “unique” début book club novel, The Three Lives of Cate Kay.

Publishing director Darcy Nicholson bought UK and Commonwealth rights including audio in a six-figure deal, brokered at auction by Katie Greenstreet at Paper Literary, who also sold US rights to Laura Brown at S&S’s Atria in a “significant” deal.

The book will be published in spring 2025, and it follows author Cate Kay who “has kept her real identity a closely guarded secret”. The synopsis says: “Growing up, she and her best friend Amanda had plans to move to Hollywood after school and become actresses. But after a tragic accident, their dreams were shattered. Cate has been on the run ever since. Now the bestselling novelist of her generation, no one knows who she is, and that’s how she likes it, until a letter arrives upending everything she thought she knew about her past.”

Fagan is an Emmy-award winning journalist and the author of What Made Maddy Run (Back Bay Books/ Little Brown & Co), which was a semi-finalist for the PEN/ESPN Award for literary sports writing. She is also the author of three further non-fiction titles, and spent seven years as a presenter on the ESPN cable sports channel. 

Nicholson said: “Kate Fagan’s début reads with the confidence of a novelist 10 years into honing their craft; it is quite something. This multi-perspective, fictional memoir is both bang on trend and entirely unique. Laced through with chapters from our protagonist’s novels, this is a celebration of storytelling as well as an exploration of the cost of ambition and the longings of first love. The Three Lives of Cate Kay is a triumph and it’s a privilege to welcome Kate to our new Bloomsbury General list.”

Fagan added: “Katie is an extraordinary agent who has understood this book from day one; I can’t say enough good things about the work of Paper Literary. And when we first met with Darcy, I knew within minutes that I needed to work with her – she brought sharp insight into the characters as well as passion for how we could best bring this project into the world. She and Bloomsbury are the perfect home for The Three Lives of Cate Kay and I imagine Cate Kay herself would have been thrilled to work with such a smart, ambitious, dedicated team.”