Rice moves to S&S with 'perfect feel-good novel'

Eva Rice has moved to Simon & Schuster from Headline, after the publisher secured her latest novel in a "major" deal.

Clare Hey, publishing director for fiction, bought UK and Commonwealth rights at auction for This Could Be Everything from Claire Paterson Conrad at Janklow & Nesbit UK.

Rice’s novel The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (Headline Review) was among  the first Richard & Judy Book Club selections, and has sold more than 250,000 copies, according to the publisher. It has been republished in an anniversary edition with a foreword from Miranda Hart. TV rights have sold to Fudge Park Productions and Moonage Pictures.

"This Could Be Everything is a long-anticipated return from Rice," the new novel’s synopsis explains. "It is 1990 and the streets of Notting Hill in London are filled with colour, life and the pulse of music from around the world. But behind a front door on St Quentin Avenue, 19-year-old February Kingdom is Not OK. She finds herself at her lowest point, having lost everything she holds dear.

"Then, one evening in May, she finds an escaped canary called Yellow in her kitchen which sparks a glimmer of hope in her. When its owner, Theo, who works in the pet shop down the road, gives Yellow to February to look after, she starts to feel her way out of her own private darkness. This is a story about being a sister when your sister is gone, of loss and overcoming grief, and of the bliss of first love. It is also about what happens when you start looking after something more important than you, and of the hope a little yellow bird can bring."

Hey sad: "The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets is one of my all-time favourite books. So when Claire called me to tell me about This Could Be Everything, I could not have been more excited. It delivers everything I could have hoped for: nostalgia, hope, tenderness, and has a cameo role from Michael Hutchence to boot. I can’t wait to share it with Eva’s fans – and to bring a new generation of readers to her writing."

Rice is an author and songwriter. Her first book, Who’s Who in Enid Blyton, was published when she was 22 and was revised and re-published by Orion in 2003. She has written two novels since: The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets and The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp (Quercus).

"I am completely thrilled to be with Simon & Schuster UK and couldn’t be more excited to be on the list of the brilliant Clare Hey," Rice said. "This Could Be Everything is in the best possible hands and I am so looking forward to introducing readers old and new to this book, set in 1990, in pre-Richard Curtis Notting Hill."

Conrad added: "This Could Be Everything is pretty much the perfect feel-good novel, just what we all need right now."

S&S UK will be publishing in hardback, e-book and audio in February 2023, supported by a "high-impact" marketing and publicity campaign.