VERVE Books secures Laura Blackett’s and Eve Gleichman’s satirical 'anti-rom-com'

VERVE Books has seized Laura Blackett’s and Eve Gleichman’s "anti-rom-com", Trust and Safety.

Editorial Director Jenna Gordon acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, plus audiobook, from Jenny Myer at Jenny Myer Literary Agency Inc. The book will be published as a paperback original in June 2024, and simultaneously in the US in hardback by Dutton.

Trust and Safety is described as "a wry yet tender-hearted novel" about two couples. "Whip-smart and wickedly funny, the novel examines questions of authenticity, betrayal, belonging and entitlement, while poking fun at contemporary fear of the ‘gay agenda’," the synopsis says.

Gleichman and Blackett are writing partners, and their debut novel was The Very Nice Box (VERVE Books/ Harper). They said: "We’re happy to work with VERVE on Trust and Safety, a book about a newly-wed straight couple who trade their busy lives in Brooklyn for ones upstate, only to find themselves in a disastrous fixer-upper with a queer polycule as neighbours. In 2020, many city-dwellers tried their hands at quiet, meaningful lives upstate, only to find that in fact, they missed the chaos and convenience of the city.

"We wanted to see how this couple would fare; would life upstate look like the Instagram Reels? Would their nascent marriage survive a seductive neighbour? Would chicken farming and mushroom foraging set them free?"

Gordon added: "Trust and Safety is an assertive, dry and fun second novel from Blackett and Gleichman. Astutely observant in its depiction of interactions between city and country folk, straight and queer culture, and the individual and social media, it’s a satire from which no one emerges unscathed."