Rosie Project author and wife sign deal with Two Roads

Two Roads has acquired Two Steps Forward, a novel from husband-and-wife team Graeme Simsion, debut author of The Rosie Project (Penguin), and Anne Buist.

Two Steps Forward is a "smart and funny" tale, told in alternating chapters, of two misfits looking to make a new start by walking the 2,000 kilometre Camino de Santiago. Zoe is a recently-widowed Californian artist while Martin is a divorced engineer from Yorkshire. The book's blurb asks whether these two "very different" people will find themselves - and perhaps each other - along the way.

Publisher of John Murray Press imprint Two Roads, Lisa Highton, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and EU rights from Sarah Lutyens of Lutyens & Rubinstein, on behalf of Text Publishing. The book will released on 5th April 2018 in hardback, export trade paperback, e-book and audio digital download in spring 2018.

Highton called it "a sweet and funny journey of mid-life and second chances". 

"We’re absolutely delighted to be publishing Two Steps Forward and working with Graeme and Anne," she said. "They’ve written a witty and touching road novel of two people trying to find themselves (and perhaps each other) by walking two thousand kilometres along the Camino; a sweet and funny journey of mid-life and second chances."

Simsion added on behalf of himself and his wife: "We're confident (Two Roads will) bring the attention and focus of a small publisher together with the strength of a major parent company in Hachette. And Two Roads: could there be a better name for the publisher of a book about two people walking the Camino de Santiago on independent journeys of reinvention?"

Simsion's 2014 debut The Rosie Project (Penguin) has sold 329,057 copies through Nielsen for £1.8m in the UK. Film rights were snapped up by Columbia Pictures. Buist is also the author of the Natalie King series, also published by Text Publishing.