You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Lauren Groff, author of Matrix, The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia and Fates and Furies, has signed a three-book deal with Hutchinson Heinemann.
Ailah Ahmed, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights for Groff’s upcoming novel, The Vaster Wilds, and two new projects in a three-book deal from Bill Clegg at The Clegg Agency.
Sarah McGrath at Riverhead, PRH, will publish in the US. The Vaster Wilds will publish in the UK in September 2023. Hutchinson Heinemann will also be re-issuing her entire backlist with new covers over the next 12 months.
Set in 1610, in the new Jamestown colony of Virginia, The Vaster Wilds is described by the publisher as a subversion of the classic American survival story, following a young English servant in her flight from the desperation of the colony’s starving time.
Alone in the great, unknown wilderness, the protagonist of the “extraordinary” new novel encounters the terror and wonder of nature, as well as the reverberations of her people’s actions and her own faith across time and culture.
Ahmed commented: “Lauren Groff is one of the most exciting writers at work today. She has an imagination like no other, can fashion a sentence like no other and each novel she writes is bold, brave and ambitious. She’s the best of the best. I have been obsessed with Groff for many, many years now. I loved publishing Matrix and had to pinch myself when signing up three new books. I cannot wait for everyone to read The Vaster Wilds – it’s an awesome and important story with scenes that I will never forget.”
Groff said: “I am deeply delighted to find such an extraordinary home in Hutchinson Heinemann for The Vaster Wilds, the book of mine that is closest to my heart; I am over the moon to be in the fierce and brilliant care of Ailah Ahmed and her marvellous team for all three future books.”