Doubleday wins four-way auction for novel and short story collection by Heather Parry

Doubleday has snapped up a novel and a short story collection by Heather Parry, set in a "single room with a locked door".

Bobby Mostyn-Owen, senior commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, after a four-way auction from Emma Shercliff at Laxfield Literary. The novel, Carrion Crow, will be published in early 2025, with the collection of short stories to follow.

"Marguerite has been locked in the attic of her family home, a disintegrating Chelsea house overlooking the stench of the Thames," the novel’s synopsis says. "Why are her mother’s visits seemingly becoming less frequent? And just how much time has passed since the lock closed on the attic’s hatch?"

It adds: "Carrion Crow is a transportive and gloriously gothic commentary on the constraints of polite society—and the even greater danger of conformity—that unfurls one family’s festering secrets."

Mostyn-Owen said: "I was deeply impressed by the scope and precision of Carrion Crow, most of which takes place in a confined single room with a locked door... the novel unfolds as an enlightening and spine-tingling tale that explores mother-daughter relationships, sexuality, class, rampant Victorian colonialism and bodily freedoms."

Shercliff added: "Bobby’s passion for Heather’s writing and understanding of her literary ambitions radiated in their response to both Carrion Crow and the short story collection to follow. I’m delighted to have placed Heather’s distinctive and disturbing fiction at Doubleday and excited at the prospect of seeing this exhilarating editorial relationship develop in the years ahead."

Parry’s debut novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl (Gallic Books), was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. She is also the author of a short story collection, This Is My Body, Given For You (Haunt Publishing), and her first non-fiction book, Electric Dreams, is out in March as part of 404 Ink’s Inklings series.