Liz Hyder’s dystopian debut pre-empted by Pushkin

Pushkin Children’s Books has acquired world rights to Bearmouth, a “resoundingly original book”, by freelance publishing PR and debut author Liz Hyder.

The dystopian thriller is about Newt Coombes, who works and lives in a coalmine deep beneath the Earth’s surface.

Bearmouth was sold in a five figure pre-emptive deal by Anwen Hooson, who launched her new Bird Literary Agency last month.

Pushkin editor-at-large, Sarah Odedina, said: “I was utterly bowled over by the story. It is a resoundingly original book and the powerful narrator stands alongside Mark Haddon’s Christopher John Francis Boone and Sally Gardner’s Standish Treadwell in telling us a story that will tip our understanding of the fictional voice.”

Hyder is a freelance PR consultant working in publishing, theatre and festivals, and runs Writing West Midlands’ young writers group, Spark, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. She won the Moniack Mhor Emerging Writer Award earlier this year.

She said: “I’m beyond delighted that Bearmouth has found such a perfect home with Pushkin...To work with Adam Freudenheim and legendary editor Sarah Odedina genuinely feels like a dream come true.”

Bearmouth will be published in hardback in Autumn 2019, with paperback publication planned for 2020.