Renard snaps up Morgan's 'delicately spun' novel

Renard Press has acquired Crossing Over by Ann Morgan, a novel that explores the realities of illegal immigration and living with dementia. 

Publisher Will Dady obtained UK and commonwealth rights directly from the publisher, and will release the book in April 2023.

The novel draws on Morgan’s experience living just a few minutes from where a number of the small boats crossing the Channel land. It revolves around Edie, who is living with dementia, and what happens when she crosses paths with Jonah, a refugee who travelled to England on a boat in search of a better life. 

"Edie finds the world around her increasingly difficult to comprehend," the synopsis reads. "Words are no longer at her beck and call, old friends won’t mind their own business and workmen have appeared in the neighbouring fields, preparing to obliterate the landscape she has known all her life. Rattling around in an old farmhouse on the cliffs, she’s beginning to run out of excuses to stop do-gooders interfering when one day she finds an uninvited guest in the barn and is thrown back into the past.

"Jonah has finally made it to England – where everything, he’s been told, will be better. But the journey was fraught with danger, and many of his fellow travellers didn’t make it. Sights firmly set on London, but unsure which way to turn, he is unprepared for what happens when he breaks into Edie’s barn.

"Haunted by the prospect of being locked away and unable to trust anyone else, the elderly woman stubbornly battling dementia and the traumatised illegal immigrant find solace in an unlikely companionship that helps them make sense of their worlds even as they struggle to understand each other. Crossing Over is a delicately spun tale that celebrates compassion and considers the transcendent language of humanity.

Morgan is an author, speaker and editor based in Folkestone. Her writing has been published in the Guardian, Independent and Financial Times, and by the BBC. In 2012, she set herself the challenge of reading a book from every country in a year – a project that led to a TED talk and to the non-fiction book Reading the World: How I Read a Book from Every Country (Vintage). Her debut novel, Beside Myself (Bloomsbury), has been translated into eight languages. She is also the Literary Explorer in Residence of the Cheltenham Literature Festival for 2022 and 2023.

Dady said: "I’m absolutely delighted to have acquired the UK and commonwealth rights to Ann Morgan’s beautiful new novel, Crossing Over. A stirring tale that considers the plight of those forced by circumstance to leave their homeland and cross the Channel in search of a better life, as well as the realities of living with dementia, the book is a real celebration of humanity, and leaves you reeling, thinking about what others are facing in their lives and the power of connection, even when language fails."