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Verve Books has bagged A Quiet Contagion, a "disquieting" mystery novel with a "historical twist", in a two-book deal from Jane Jesmond.
Editor Jenna Gordon acquired world English language rights from Amanda Preston at LBA. A Quiet Contagion will be published in November 2023 with the other book in the deal, the third instalment in Jesmond’s Jen Shaw series, to be published in July 2024.
A Quiet Contagion was inspired by the 1957 polio epidemic in Coventry and the Cutter incident. The novel takes place over multiple timelines and points of view "ultimately unveiling a secret so shocking – especially in light of the recent global coronavirus pandemic – that it will remain with you long after reading". Pitched for fans of Jodi Picoult.
The third and final instalment in Jesmond’s Jen Shaw series follows from her debut On The Edge, the first in the series featuring the "dynamic, daredevil" protagonist, Jen Shaw.
Gordon commented: "This brand-new standalone cements Jane’s reputation as a talented voice in UK crime fiction. A Quiet Contagion has a different feel – and a very different protagonist – to the Jen Shaw series, but it is undeniably a Jane Jesmond novel."
Jesmond added: "A Quiet Contagion is the most personal of my novels to date, spanning the six decades of my life and inspired by my own experiences of illness as well as my fascination with the story of how polio was conquered by the efforts of Sabin, Salk and Roosevelt with the ’March of Dimes’. I hope readers will have as much fun solving the mystery that lies at the novel’s heart as I had concocting it."