Riley moves to Picador in six-way auction for ‘finest novel yet’

Gwendoline Riley is moving to Picador and reuniting with former editor Anne Meadows following a six-way auction for The Palm House, which “promises to be her finest novel yet”.

Editorial director Meadows, who edited Riley’s last two books while at Granta, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada and including audio, to two books from Zoe Waldie at RCW. The Palm House will be published in the spring of 2025.

The Palm House is the story of Edmund Putnam, whose professional and romantic life is about to change. The magazine to which he has dedicated decades is about to close. Over an unsettled weekend he reflects on his position in life.

Riley is the author of books including My Phantoms (Granta), which was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, and First Love (Granta), which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Goldsmiths Prize, Dylan Thomas Prize, Gordon Burn Prize and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for fiction. In 2018, the Times Literary Supplement named her as one of the 20 best British and Irish novelists working today.

“Every page of The Palm House sings with Gwendoline’s precise, unmistakable and elegant prose,” said Meadows, who joined Picador from Granta earlier this year. “It promises to be her finest novel yet, and I know the many fans who loved First Love and My Phantoms will be waiting as eagerly as we are for publication. She’s truly one of the greatest novelists of her generation, and we are tremendously proud at Picador to be her new home. And I am so, so happy to be working with her again, and excited for everything to come.”

Riley added: “I am delighted that The Palm House has found a home at Picador, an imprint that has published so many novelists I admire. I’m very happy, too, to be working again with Anne, the excellent editor of my last two novels and I hope of many more to come.”