Salt to publish Hadley-Pryce’s ‘chilling’ novel set in the Black Country

Kerry Hadley-Pryce’s God’s Country, “a chilling, dark” novel “dominated by the unknown and an all-seeing narrator”, has been snapped up by Salt Publishing.

Jen Hamilton-Emery, director, acquired world rights direct from the author for publication as a paperback original on 15th February 2023.

In God’s Country, Guy Flood returns to the Black Country with his girlfriend, Alison, to attend his identical twin brother’s funeral. The reasons he left, and the secrets he left behind, slowly become clear.

Hadley-Pryce said: “I was born in the Black Country and have lived there most of my life. I’ve always felt that it, and the texture of its part-industrial, part-rural landscape provokes a unique sensation of place, and I try to emulate that in my writing.

In God’s Country, the Black Country doesn’t just operate as background scenery, but as a resonant, ever-present figure, and my characters have to deal with that.”

Hamilton-Emery said Hadley-Pryce has “become synonymous with menacing fiction from the Black Country”, adding: “In this delicious tale a funeral provides the impetus for a claustrophobic narrative packed with threat and paranoia.”

Hadley-Pryce was born in the Black Country. She worked nights in a Wolverhampton petrol station before becoming a secondary school teacher.

She wrote her first novel, The Black Country, while studying for an MA in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School, for which she gained a distinction and was awarded the Michael Schmidt Prize for outstanding achievement. Her second novel Gamble (Salt) was shortlisted for the Encore Second Novel Award. She is currently a PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University, researching psychogeography and Black Country writing.