Sphere nets Epstein-inspired thriller from Marwood

Award-winning author Alex Marwood has written a Jeffrey Epstein-inspired psychological thriller for Sphere, The Island of Lost Girls, exploring the “obscene levels of wealth and the sex trafficking of vulnerable teenage girls”. 

Cath Burke, deputy m.d. of Little, Brown Book Group and Sphere executive publisher, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to The Island of Lost Girls from Laetitia Rutherford at Watson Little. Sphere will publish in hardback, e-book and audio on 14th July 2022, with a paperback to follow in 2023. 

Burke said: “Alex has been inspired by a ripped-from-the-headlines story, the entire world has been following. With The Island of Lost Girls, Alex explores obscene levels of wealth and the sex trafficking of vulnerable teenage girls. It is a novel about corruption, power and a mother’s search for her daughter — and about the ultimate revenge.” 

Marwood is also a British journalist but has written thrillers under the pseudonym Alex Marwood since 2012, distinguishing her work from romantic comedies under her real name Serena Mackesy. She is an Edgar and Macavity Award winner and is published by Penguin in the US.

She commented: “The issues of people-trafficking and exploitation in this global economy have been worrying me increasingly, as they have many people, and the fact that it didn’t seem to be slowing down at all while the world was locked down increased my unease. In many ways this was a book I needed to write.” 

Rutherford said: “We are all so excited for Alex Marwood’s latest engrossing and sophisticated thriller, and I couldn’t be prouder to be part of Team Marwood.”