Picador snaps up tale of 'infidelity and power' from Hunter

Picador will publish two more novels from The End We Start From author Megan Hunter.

The new books are, as yet, untitled, but the first is a dark, suspenseful family drama about marriage, infidelity and power with Picador’s senior commissioning editor Sophie Jonathan describing the material as “exquisite”.

Jonathan acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, including audio, in two new novels through Emma Paterson at RCW. North American rights have sold to Grove Atlantic.

Hunter’s debut, The End We Start From, was one of the much-anticipated titles of London Book Fair 2016 with Picador beating off four other publishers to the rights at auction. It was published in hardback last year and was Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month in May 2018, selling 14,561 copies for £113,045 across both editions through Nielsen BookScan.

“Megan is one of the most exciting young British novelists writing now, and to have been able to launch her career with The End We Start From, and to see that book championed by the trade, has been thrilling,” Jonathan said.

“Megan’s two new novels demonstrate the scope and ambition of her work, and the material I’ve read is exquisite. Megan writes sentences that gleam with light and life, and her stories are ones that – even if their worlds are very different from our own – we relate to because of their sheer humanity. I couldn’t be more excited to be publishing her.”

Hunter has studied at Sussex and at Cambridge universities and her poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. 

The author, now based in Cambridge, said: “I am utterly delighted that Picador – which published The End We Start From with such passion and thoughtfulness – will be publishing my next two books. It has been a joy to work with Sophie and the whole Picador team, and I am so looking forward to continuing to work with them for years to come.”

Paterson said: “It has been enormously fulfilling to see the care and ambition with which Sophie and the Picador team published The End We Start From, and I can’t wait to see what they do for Megan’s next two books, which I’m certain are going to blow readers away.”