Sales Catalogue IMPRESS 2017
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SALES CATALOGUE Photographer: Aaron Hargreaves IMPRESS PRIZE FOR NEW WRITERS 2017 NOW OPEN Contents Frontlist 3 - 14 Fiction, non-fiction and upcoming titles Backlist 15 Contact information Contact information Natalie Clark Marketing and Publicity Manager Impress Books T: +44(0)1392 950910 E: [email protected] W: www.impress-books.co.uk TRADE ORDERS TO: CENtraL BooKS, 50 FresHWater Road, CHadWELL HeatH, LONDON RM8 1RX UK TEL: +44 (0)20 8986 4854 FAX: +44 (0)20 8633 5821 WWW.ceNtraLbooKS.com www.impress-books.co.uk www.facebook.com/ @impress_books @ImpressBooks1 ImpressPrize/ The Joyce Girl Annabel Abbs Winner of the Impress Prize for New Writers 2015 ‘A hugely impressive ‘A breathtakingly beautiful novel; it will linger in your mind long after you debut. Abbs has have finished reading.’ (Rather Too Fond of Books) brought to life an extraordinary cast of ‘A story that invades your soul and stays there… quite simply, stunning’ characters - Joyce, (Linda’s Book Bag) Beckett et al - and painted their rackety, ‘Enthralling. It captured my imagination with its charm and energy… bohemian world in truly an impressive debut’ (Lit Nerd) vivid technicolour.’ (Lisa O’Kelly, ‘The Joyce Girl is a fascinating portrait of a talented young woman Literary Editor, The destroyed by a patriarchal society... Abbs has created a convincing Observer) portrayal of a young woman virtually erased from history. It’s infuriating and heart breaking in equal measure.’ (Writes of Women) ‘Here is a powerful portrait of a young woman yearning to be an artist, whose passion for life – and rage at being unable to fulfil her talent – ‘The Joyce Girl has leapt into my top ten favourite historical fiction books.’ burns from the pages.’ (Anita Sethi, The Observer) (The Cosy Reader) ‘The best 20th-century fiction of the year’ (Historical Novel Society) ‘Abbs brings the world of avant-garde Paris … to life.’ (Viva Lewes) ‘Here is Lucia Joyce, vibrant, passionate and alive.’ (Mary Talbot, author of ‘It is difficult to believe that this is a debut novel for Abbs... she brings the Costa Biography Award 2012 winner Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes) alive an extraordinary cast of characters and recreates the sense of the bohemian world of Paris in the 1920’s with great vividness.’ (TripFiction) ‘One of those hidden gems of a novel… both sad and enthralling.’ (Judith Griffith, Nudge Books) 1928 Avant-garde Paris is buzzing with the latest ideas in art, music, literature and dance. Lucia, the talented and ambitious daughter of James Joyce, is making her name as a dancer, training with some of the world’s most gifted performers. When a young Samuel Beckett comes to work for her father, she’s captivated by his quiet intensity and falls passionately in love. Persuaded she has clairvoyant powers, Lucia believes her destiny is to marry Beckett. But when her beloved brother is enticed away, the hidden threads of the Joyces’ lives begin to unravel, destroying Lucia’s dreams and foiling her attempts to escape the shadow of her genius father. 1934 Her life in tatters, Lucia is sent by her father to pioneering psychoanalyst Carl Jung. For years she has kept quiet. But now she decides to speak. Inspired by a true story, The Joyce Girl is a compelling and moving account of thwarted ambition and the destructive love of a father. Author Bio Annabel Abbs is a writer and author. Her first novel, The Joyce Girl, won the 2015 Impress prize for New Writers, and has been sold to publishers in Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Germany, Spain and South America. It was longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award, the Bath Novel Award, the Waverton GoodRead Award, was a Guardian Reader Pick 2016 and was selected for pitch at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival. She lives with her family in London. Category Literary fiction, historical fiction, women’s fiction ISBN 978-1907-6-0587-1 (PB) FICTION Price/Pub date £8.99, June 2016 Sales highlights Has sold 1,600 physical copies to date, enjoying a wealth of global publicity. Profits from first year royalties will be donated to YoungMindsUK. 3 The Shape of Your Song Magdalena McGuire Winner of the Impress Prize for New Writers 2016 ‘I was really impressed with Magdalena’s entry... and expect to be hearing a lot more about her later in 2017’ (Mel Mitchell, New Books Magazine) ‘This year’s shortlist was one of the strongest we’ve had at Impress. We emerged with an extraordinarily worthy winner’ (Julian Webb, Commissioning Editor at Impress Books and a member of the 2016 panel) A remarkable work of fiction set in communist Poland in the 1980s. ‘Part of my impetus in writing my novel is that I wanted to explore this lost Poland, the country I could’ve grown up in, but didn’t. In particular, I wanted to explore what life could have been like for a young woman living under communism and making art. Nineteen-eighties Poland provides a dramatic and underexplored setting to examine the types of questions I’m interested in. What was it like to live through a turbulent period in history, when your civil liberties were taken away? How was it that artists managed to make such exciting work when, officially, they were stripped of artistic freedom? And what might happen if love and politics came into conflict? Although communist Poland provides the context for exploring these questions, they are, of course, questions that have universal significance.’ (Magdalena McGuire) Author Bio Magdalena McGuire was born in Poland, grew up in Darwin, and now lives in Melbourne. Her short stories have been published in the UK and Australia by The Big Issue and The Bristol Prize, and by Margaret River Press respectively. She has published widely on human rights topics, including women’s rights and the rights of people with disabilities. She is an avid reader and particularly enjoys reading books about girls who like reading books. Follow her on twitter @Magdalena_McG. Category Literary fiction ISBN 978-1911-2-9314-9 FICTION Price/Pub date £8.99, Autumn 2017 Sales highlights Magdalena is a successful short story writer, and we expect to have reviews and features across the national press both in the UK and Australia. 4 Tree Magic Harriet Springbett Praise for Tree Magic ‘Everywhere the book goes is brought to life through the strong, vibrant and different characters we meet. Emotional and unexpected.’ (French Village Diaries) ‘Rainbow’s journey was a wonder to read... utterly stunning from start to finish.’ (Rachel Bell, #SundayYA host) ‘The writing is poised and elegant with many moments of lyricism’ (Atthys J. Gage, author of Spark) A tantalising and original Young Adult novel Thirteen-year-old Rainbow discovers she can communicate with trees. But that’s just the beginning. Her magic hands can shape trees at her will, but her gift is dangerous and has fatal consequences. An accident that leaves Rainbow unconscious leads her mother to make a confession that will change Rainbow’s life forever. Are her abilities a gift or a curse? Can Rainbow really trust her mother? From England to France, through secrets, fears and parallel worlds, Rainbow’s journey to understand her powers takes her beyond everything she’s ever known. To find the truth, she must also find herself. Author Bio Harriet Springbett lives in the Poitou-Charentes region of France with her French partner and their teenage daughters. Her short stories and poetry have been published in literary journals and placed in several writing competitions. She grew up in West Dorset and qualified as a manufacturing engineer before realising she preferred people to machines, and words to numbers. She moved to France in 1995, where she studied French and then worked as a project manager, a freelance feature writer, a translator and an English teacher. She has always written in her free time. Tree Magic is her first novel. She blogs on writing, life in France and French cultural events at https://harrietspringbett.wordpress.com. Follow her on twitter @HarriSpringbett and on instagram @harri_springbett. Category Young adult, magical realism ISBN 978-1911-2-9300-2 Price/Pub date £7.99, 1 March 2017 YOUNG ADULT Sales highlights A hit with book bloggers, this year will see Harriet speaking at YA events in the UK and France, including YALC. 5 The Russian Countess Escaping Revolutionary Russia With a Foreword by Robert Chandler Edith Sollohub ‘Fascinating and beautifully written... Her book is a revelation, and one of the great memoirs from that era...’ (Antony Beevor, The Sunday Times) ‘Distinguished by sharp observation and a strong memory for visual detail’ (Barbara Heldt, The Times Literary Supplement) ‘Her narrative attains spiritual depth... she had the ability to write vividly and with understanding about all the many people, from very different walks of life, whom she encountered during her journey through post-revolutionary Russia’ (Robert Chandler, British poet and literary translator) ‘She always keeps the sympathy of her readers’ (Country Life) ‘What is remarkable about this dense, well-paced memoir is the astounding detail of Sollohub’s memories - of conversations, people, or places - making this work of immense value as a historical document accessible to a wide reading public... not to be missed’ (Russian Life) An extraordinary tale of escape from revolutionary Russia Separated from her three young sons, stripped of her possessions and fearing for her life, Countess Edith Sollohub found herself trapped in revolutionary Russia. The daughter of a high-ranking diplomat, Edith was destined to join the social and intellectual elite of Imperial Russia. As a child she spent the summers learning to ride and shoot on the family’s country estate; during the winter months her parents hosted lavish parties in their luxurious St Petersburg Apartment.