Fleet wins van Straaten's debut in four-way auction

Fleet has acquired Heartstring, the debut novel by Emma van Straaten, who was the winner of the inaugural Women’s Prize Trust Discoveries Prize in 2021.

Editorial director Rhiannon Smith acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Lucy Morris at Curtis Brown in a four-way auction, and will publish the book in February 2025 in print, e-book and audiobook.

The synopsis says: "Alice has been cleaning Tom’s flat every Wednesday for a year. With every smudge wiped from his coffee cup, every multivitamin counted from the jar, every crease smoothed out in his bed, Alice spirals deeper into infatuation… Told through the eyes of an obsessive protagonist, Heartstring is a literary study of unreliability and unlikability. Exploring alienation and loneliness, class and race, it’s a skilled debut with resonance in the way that we view women, mental health and the lost in society."

The opening pages of an early version of Heartstring won the inaugural Discoveries Prize in 2021. Now in its fourth year, Discoveries is an annual writing development programme and prize for unpublished female writers run by the Women’s Prize Trust in partnership with Curtis Brown, Curtis Brown Creative and Audible.

Van Straaten’s submission was selected from over 2,300 entries by a judging panel that included authors Kate Mosse and Abi Daré. Mosse described her writing at the time as "suspenseful, disquieting, brave, and eloquent".

Van Straaten said: "Rhiannon and her team at Fleet have shown such passion and enthusiasm for Heartstring, and I am so excited to work together to see where we can take unlikeable Alice, and her monstrous, suffocating love for Tom. This novel has been written in snatches of time over five years, so it’s truly a dream to be working towards its publication in 2025 with such an inspiring team."

Smith added: "Heartstring is a book that captures you from the first page, taking up residence in your head and making you wonder just who has been looking through your belongings lately. Emma is a huge talent and we’re  looking forward to working with her and bringing her writing to readers."

Morris added: "Emma has created an extraordinary character in Alice – someone you can’t help but root for, even as you watch her increasingly through your fingers. It’s been so exciting to see how Emma has developed the novel from those very early yet completely arresting pages that were submitted to the Discoveries Prize and I couldn’t be more pleased that Heartstring has landed with such a passionate publisher."