Doubleday pre-empts Madeline Cash's 'ambitious, voicey' first novel

Doubleday has pre-empted Madeline Cash’s first novel, Lost Lambs.

Senior commissioning editor Bobby Mostyn-Owen acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Devon Mazzone at FSG, within 36 hours of submission, and the book will be published in hardback in 2026. Rights sold previously to Jackson Howard at FSG, in an exclusive submission. 

"Bud and Cathrine Flynn are embarking on a spectacularly disastrous foray into open marriage," the synopsis says. "And their three daughters, Harper, Louise and Abigail, are each carving out their own rebellions (genius, terrorism and dating an older guy) to become, that mythical figure, the normal American girl."

The synopsis adds: "Lost Lambs expands past the Flynns onto a colourful panorama of suburban dysfunction – with a comic and affecting cast of characters varied enough to include a priest with a passion for French cinema, and a nefarious local billionaire whose machinations unexpectedly drag the Flynns into the centre of a crime ring. It may be just the thing that brings them closer together."

Cash is the author of the short story collection Earth Angel (Clash Books), which won the 2023 PenCraft Fiction Award, and is the editor of Forever Magazine. "I met Jackson Howard at a party and begged him to read what is now Lost Lambs," she said. "I’m forever grateful to him, FSG and Doubleday for taking a chance on me as a first-time novelist and long-time dyslexic never having written a story longer than 10 pages."

Mostyn-Owen added: "Sometimes you read a novel that reminds you why you love books. Assured, ambitious, voicey, incredibly funny and big-hearted – Lost Lambs is a treat."

Translations rights have sold at auction to Gramma (Feltrinelli) in Italy, Denoel in a pre-empt in France, and Salamandra in Spain – also in a pre-empt. The book is the subject of an eight-publisher auction in Germany.