Doubleday snaps up second novel from Crewe

Doubleday has snapped a second novel from Paddy Crewe. 

Bobby Mostyn-Owen, commissioning editor, acquired world English language rights to True Love from Zoë Waldie at RCW. It will publish in hardback in summer 2024. 

The synopsis reads: “It is the 1980s. Keely and Finn live in different towns in the North East of England, each unaware of the other’s existence. Keely is in the throes of grief, while Finn has spent most of his young life marooned on an island of loneliness. Both are in search of something beyond the confines of their suffering, hoping for a sense of renewal and a belief in the future. When the two meet in the haze of a night out, what begins is a relationship that will shape the rest of their lives.” 

Crewe’s début novel My Name Is Yip (also Doubleday) has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask, the Wilbur Smith, and the Society of Author’s First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. 

Mostyn-Owen said: “Paddy Crewe understands – and details with a deceptive simplicity that calls to my mind the work of Claire Keegan, Louise Kennedy and Douglas Stuart – the very beatings of our hearts. True Love is a tale of want, loneliness and the restless longing we all hold to be seen and heard for who we are. The novel asks us all to ponder how we choose to live our lives with meaning, with truth and, perhaps we ultimately hope, with love.” 

Crewe added: “It’s such a privilege that Doubleday has chosen to publish my second novel. True Love has been so warmly and enthusiastically received by Bobby and the rest of the team that I know it’s in exactly the right hands.”