Headline snaps up debut from ex-Hodder employee Steele

Headline Review has snapped-up the “mesmerising” debut novel by ex-Hodder employee and freelance editor Sarah Steele.

Editorial director Sherise Hobbs bought world English rights to The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon from Gaia Banks at Sheil Land. German and Italian rights have been pre-empted by Goldmann and Feltrinelli respectively.

Out in summer 2020, its synopsis explains: “Set on the Riviera, in 1962 and the present day, the novel follows broken-hearted Flo as she retraces the steps of the mysterious Nancy Moon, the great-aunt she never knew existed, and attempts to piece together a long-lost story of tragedy and love and find the thread that will stitch her own life back together.”

Hobbs said: “This is a beautifully written story of journeying from loss to love, and how we recover from heartbreak. Of our capacity to gather ourselves together, and to start again. Nancy Moon is a joy. Readers everywhere are going to lose their hearts to this exquisite novel.”

Steele was the director of Wordfest at Gloucester Cathedral in 2018, which featured Dan Cruickshank, Andrew Taylor and Rachel Joyce, amongst others, culminating in a suffragette march led by Helen Pankhurst. After training in London as a classical pianist and violinist, she joined the world of publishing as assistant to Carole Welch at Hodder and Stoughton. She was for many years a freelance editor.

She said: “It has been thrilling to witness the dream team of Gaia Banks and Sherise Hobbs take Nancy Moon under their wings so enthusiastically. I am delighted to have become part of the Headline family and look forward to exciting times together.”

Banks added: “It was wonderful to see how immediately and wholeheartedly Sherise and the Headline team embraced The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon. Their plans for publication are so exciting. I could not be more pleased.”