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Duckworth snaps up Scott's 'spectacular' historical novel
Duckworth Books has snapped up Anika Scott’s Sinners of Starlight City, a "gripping story of revenge and redemption".
Publisher Rowan Cope acquired British Commonwealth rights from Laetitia Rutherford at Watson, Little. The book will be published in summer 2023.
Scott’s novel was inspired by true events and her own Italian-American and African-American heritage. Set between 1920s Sicily and 1933 and the Chicago World’s Fair, the novel follows Madame Mystique, a "performer extraordinaire", also know as Rosa Mancuso, who must protect her cousin Mina when she has a child out of wedlock.
Scott is also the author of The German Heiress (Cornerstone) and The Soviet Sisters (Duckworth Books).
Cope said: "In her novels, Anika Scott animates complex ethical scenarios through richly imagined storytelling. Now she turns to the rise of Fascism – which in the early 1930s bewitched even some who later saw their error – and the struggles of ordinary people to live and love across the notorious ’colour line’, in the face of often violent prejudice. All this, combined with a gripping revenge plot and irresistible settings, the story is glamorous and noirish and sure to delight readers."
Scott added: "This story is for the outsiders, the misunderstood, the people who feel society or their family won’t allow them to be all of who they are. Rosa refuses to let others tell her who she is, and I hope the story of her turbulent childhood and her painful quest at the fair gives readers the courage to do the same."
