Viking triumphs in nine-way auction for début literary love story

Viking has triumphed in a "fiercely competitive" nine-way auction for début author Miranda Cowley Heller's literary love story, The Paper Palace.

Penguin General publisher Venetia Butterfield acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Sue Armstrong at the C&W Agency, on behalf of Anna Stein at ICM. Viking will publish in hardback in summer 2021. 

US rights have already sold to Sarah McGrath at Riverhead, at auction. German, Romanian, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, Hungarian and Brazilian rights have also sold. Translation rights are being handled by Claire Nozieres and Enrichetta Frezzato at Curtis Brown. 

Taking place over 24 hours and 50 years, "decades of family legacy, love, lies, secrets, and one unspeakable childhood tragedy lead Elle Bishop to the precipice of the life-changing decision she is about to make on a singular summer day in Cape Cod", reads the synopsis. 

Butterfield said: "The Paper Palace is a breath-taking, unputdownable literary love story about the myriad loves that make up a life. I couldn’t be more thrilled to bring Miranda Cowley Heller to Viking."

The Paper Palace is Cowley Heller's début novel. The granddaughter of literary critic Malcolm Cowley and raised in New York, Cowley Heller was the fiction and books editor at Cosmopolitan before working for almost a decade as senior vice-president and head of drama series at HBO, developing and overseeing such shows as "The Sopranos", "Six Feet Under", "The Wire", "Deadwood" and "Big Love".

Armstrong sadded: "I received The Paper Palace as I was boarding a flight from New York to London and by the time I’d landed, having turned the last page, I had that very special, rare moment when you know you’ve read something completely exceptional. This is a novel about love in all it’s glorious, destructive, unmissable and complex forms and I can’t wait for Venetia and the brilliant team at Viking to publish the magnificent début."

Photo credit: Charlotte Owen Watson