Taproot Press lands 'inventive' novel from Bruton

Taproot Press has landed Hope Never Knew Horizon, an "original and inventive" novel from Douglas Bruton.

Co-founder Patrick Jamieson acquired world rights directly from the author. The novel will be published in spring 2024 as Taproot’s lead fiction title.

Hope Never Knew Horizon traverses centuries and continents while fictionalising the origins of three famous cultural objects. The synopsis continues: "In 1891, the unlikely discovery of a beached blue whale sets in motion a series of events leading to the present day re-installation of a fundamental piece of London’s Natural History Museum. In mid-19th century Amherst, Massachusetts, one of the Dickinson family’s domestic servants discovers letters revealing a remarkable secret about the reclusive Emily. London c.1880, [a] young working-class woman Ada Alice Pullen meets the esteemed painter Frederic Leighton, beginning a relationship that will transform her and the world of art forever." 

Jamieson said: “Douglas Bruton is an original talent. On one level Hope Never Knew Horizon is a novel about love, art and that most powerful force that drives us – hope. On another level it is about history, and how often the most significant individuals are marginalised within the world of art and culture. Bruton is a novelist of sensitivity and intellect with a fine attunement to voice, and we can’t wait to bring this book to life.”

Bruton was previously longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize 2022 for his novel Blue Postcards (Fairlight Books). He said: “Sometimes as a writer I am looking for good stories to tell; sometimes I am trying to say something; sometimes you can do both. In Hope Never Knew Horizon I wanted to write something with ‘hope’ in it, and these three stories collided in my imagination. I just had to write them.”