Tinder Press bags Jessica M Guel’s ‘essential debut’ Decent People 

Tinder Press has bagged the rights to Decent People by Jessica M Guel, the story of a gifted young Mexican-American woman descended from an infamous Mexican revolutionary soldadera and the way old forces conspire to shatter her dreams of escape.

Mary-Anne Harrington acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Kerry-Ann Bentley, while at Janklow & Nesbit UK, on behalf of P J Mark and Hafizah Geter at Janklow & Nesbit. Tinder Press will publish in June 2025 alongside the US publisher, Doubleday.

The synopsis says: “When Martha Consuelos unexpectedly returns to her mother’s house, a place that’s all damage, to finish high school, all eyes are upon her, not least those of neighbor Omar, who is utterly transfixed by her newly mature body and unsettled by her brilliant mind. Over the course of a year, he and Martha will become closer than close, and it’s through his eyes that a multi-generational saga unfolds and we come to understand the way their community and the tangled history of the US and Mexico lead Martha, like her notorious great grandmother, to a tragic end.

Harrington said: “I had such a passionate response to Decent People – it’s a novel of huge flair, originality and conviction, which draws us under the spell of a vibrant young woman and forces us to witness her betrayal by those who should value her most. Jessica M. Guel is an author with her finger firmly on the contemporary pulse, and an eye trained on the long history of the novel as a vehicle for exploring injustice. I think it will be an essential debut for 2025.”

Guel added: “In writing Decent People, I wanted to explore how much of what still actively crushes a woman – especially a woman of colour attempting to live outside the limitations placed on her – is so very old, deeply systemic, and often shows up in ways too many think of as ’normal’. So I’m excited to be working with Mary-Anne and Tinder Press to bring this novel to the UK.”