#Merky Books scoops Daley-Ward’s first novel

#Merky Books has scooped Yrsa Daley-Ward’s first novel The Catch. 

Lemara Lindsay-Prince, senior commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth  rights, excluding Europe from Kerry-Ann Bentley at Janklow & Nesbit on behalf of Marya Spence at Janklow & Nesbit. #Merky Books will publish in tandem with Gina Iaquinta and Glory Edim as part of their new Well Read Black Girl x Liveright series.

The novel will be the first work of fiction from Daley-Ward. It follows the lives of twin sisters Clara and Dempsey, who were adopted by different parents following their mother’s disappearance in their infancy. Clara is successful, Dempsey is a mess. They grow up estranged, until one day Clara encounters a woman who looks like their mother, aged not a day since her disappearance on the streets of London, who comes crashing back in their lives with a debt to collect.  

Daley-Ward said: “As a writer who chose a certain path in lieu of many others. I find myself relieved to see society breaking away from the pervasive, anxiety inducing myth of ‘having it all.’ Still, I am deeply fascinated by the parallel ‘underneath’ lives of women and girls, choices that could never be made, and all of the invitations which were trapdoors- compromises born out of necessity."

Lindsay-Prince said Daley-Ward’s work is "stirring, seductive and asks the big questions about ourselves, and more specifically how we find our voice, and how we overcome". She added: "Powerfully intriguing, stylish, raw and riveting, The Catch will appeal to fans of The Vanishing Half [Dialgoue] by Brit Bennet, Nightbitch [Harvill Secker] by Rachel Yoder and Boy Parts [Faber & Faber] by Eliza Clark. We couldn’t be prouder to publish it and welcome Yrsa Daley-Ward to #Merky Books.”