Curtis Brown June July Film Rights Newsletter 2015 by Curtis Brown Australia

Curtis Brown Australia June â&#x20AC;&#x201C; July 2015

Fiction |

336 pp | July 2015

LAST DAY IN THE DYNAMITE FACTORY Annah Faulkner Vivid and stylish domestic drama.

Publisher: Picador |Paperback Rights available: Film/TV via Jerry Kalajian Agent: Clare Forster (claref@curtisbrown.com.au) Description: Last Day In The Dynamite Factory takes a middle-class couple in their forties and blows up their comfortable lives when a funeral sparks revelations of the past. Chris, a successful architect, has everything going for him - a beautiful Queensland home (even if you can see the toilet when you walk in the door), an accomplished wife, two great children ... and an annoying little voice on his shoulder telling him there's more to life. And so, he discovers, there is ... Last Day In The Dynamite Factory is surprising, sparkling, entertaining fiction from the distinctive older writer with an excellent pedigree who brought us The Beloved, shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, winner of the Qld Premier's Prize for an unpublished manuscript, commended in the FAW Christina Stead Award and winner of the Nita B Kibble Award. Praise for Annah Faulkner: 'Vivid and stylish domestic drama, enlivened by a strong gift for metaphor and the wisdom to use it sparingly.' Sydney Morning Herald/Melbourne Age 'I love Annah's writing for its sharp, insightful characterisations, and wise take on relationships. I expect we will be hearing a lot more from Annah Faulkner in years to come.' Alex Craig, publisher, Picador Annah Faulkner lives on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. She is the author of The Beloved and Last Day in the Dynamite Factory.

2 Curtis Brown Australia / Rights Newsletter / www.curtisbrown.com.au

Fiction |

368 pp | July 2015

RELATIVITY Antonia Hayes An irresistible novel about science, love, unbreakable bonds and irreversible acts Publisher: Penguin |Paperback Rights available: Film/TV on behalf of Curtis Brown UK Agent: Pippa Masson (pippa@curtisbrown.com.au) Description: Ethan is a bright young boy obsessed with physics and astronomy who lives with his mother, Claire. Claire has been a wonderful parent to Ethan, but he’s becoming increasingly curious about his father’s absence in his life, wanting to fill in the gaps. Claire’s life is centred on Ethan; she is fiercely protective of her talented, vulnerable son, and of her own feelings. When Ethan falls ill, tied to a tragic event from when he was a baby, Claire’s tightly held world is split open. On the other side of the country, Mark is trying to forget about the events that tore his family apart. Then a sudden and unexpected call home forces him to confront his past, and the hole in his life that was once filled with his wife Claire and his son Ethan. When Ethan secretly intercepts a letter from Mark to Claire, he unleashes long-suppressed forces that – like gravity – pull the three together again, testing the limits of love and forgiveness. Praise for Relativity: 'The race towards the conclusion keeps us guessing, but ultimately, it's the beautifully drawn characters who stay with you long after the final page.' Australian Women's Weekly 'Relativity left even my cynical heart pounding . . . [many] writers could learn something from Hayes . . . wonderful and beyond inventive – if one of the precise pleasures of fiction is a glimpse at someone else's thought processes, this is indeed a marvel.' Saturday Paper Antonia Hayes is an Australian author who grew up in Sydney, spent her twenties in Paris and currently lives in San Francisco. Her work has been published in Best Australian Essays, Meanjin, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Daily Life and others. Antonia has worked in publishing as a publicist and a bookseller, and co-directed Australia's National Young Writers' Festival. Relativity is her debut novel and, as well as being published in Australia, rights have been sold pre-publication to publishers in the US and Germany. 3 Curtis Brown Australia / Rights Newsletter / www.curtisbrown.com.au

Fiction |

400 pp | July 2015

PICTURE PERFECT Kate Forster Movie stars aren’t always picture perfect, especially when it comes to secrets from their past…

Publisher: Harlequin |Paperback Rights available: Film/TV Agent: Tara Wynne (tara@curtisbrown.com.au) Description: Full of sex, secrets and scandal, Picture Perfect is the scintillating new novel from Kate Forster. Zoe Greene manages the careers of Hollywood’s biggest stars. She’ll do anything to help them – and herself – get ahead. Actress Maggie Hall has been America’s sweetheart for nearly twenty years. And she’s about to learn that there are two things in life you just can’t fight: growing older and falling in love. Dylan Mercer – young, beautiful and defiant – has run away from New York to try her luck in Hollywood. She’s not after fame and fortune, though. Dylan’s on a quest to find her birth mother. All three women are swept up in the search for the actress who will score the role of a lifetime. But ambition and desire can bring out the worst in people. And in a town built on illusions, believing you can escape your past might just be the biggest deception of all. Kate Forster lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband, two children and two dogs, and can be found nursing a laptop, surrounded by magazines and watching trash TV or French films. Kate is the author of the adult novels; The Perfect Location, The Perfect Retreat, Seduction, Picture Perfect and Close Up. She has also written five young adult romance books including; Unlucky Break, Head over High Heels, Beauty and the Beat, Piece of Cake and Twice Upon a Time.

4 Curtis Brown Australia / Rights Newsletter / www.curtisbrown.com.au

Fiction |

304 pp | July 2015

THE HOMESTEAD GIRLS Fiona McArthur A heartwarming story of friendship, courage and compassion in the outback from internationally bestselling author Fiona McArthur.

Publisher: Penguin |Paperback Rights available: Film/TV Agent: Clare Forster (claref@curtisbrown.com.au) Description: Moving to the outback to join the Flying Doctors will change Billie's life forever. After her teenage daughter Mia falls in with the wrong crowd, Dr Billie Green decides it's time to leave the city and return home to far western NSW. When an opportunity to pursue her childhood dream of joining the Flying Doctor Service comes along, she jumps at the chance. Flight nurse Daphne Prince â&#x20AC;&#x201C; who is thrilled to have another woman join the otherwise male crew â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and their handsome new boss, Morgan Blake, instantly make her feel welcome. Just out of town, drought-stricken grazier Soretta Byrnes has been struggling to make ends meet and has opened her homestead to boarders. Tempted by its faded splendour and beautiful outback setting, Billie, Mia and Daphne decide to move in and the four of them are soon joined by eccentric eighty-year-old Lorna Lamerton. The unlikely housemates are cautious at first, but soon they are offering each other frank advice and staunch support as they tackle medical emergencies, romantic adventures and the challenges of growing up and getting older. But when one of their lives is threatened, the strong friendship they have forged will face the ultimate test . . . Praise for Fiona McArthur: 'McArthur . . . has great skill in telling a story.' Sydney Morning Herald Fiona McArthur has worked as a rural midwife for many years. She is a clinical midwifery educator, mentors midwifery students, and is involved with obstetric emergency education for midwives and doctors from all over Australia. She lives on an often swampy farm in northern New South Wales with her husband, some livestock, and a blue heeler named Reg. She's constantly taking photographs of sunrise and sunset and loves that researching her books allows her to travel to remote places.

5 Curtis Brown Australia / Rights Newsletter / www.curtisbrown.com.au

Fiction

344 pp |

July 2015

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF HENRY HOFFMAN John Tesarsch From the author of the highly acclaimed The Philanthropist comes a new novel of assured elegance. Published by: Affirm Press | Paperback Rights available: World excl. ANZ, Film/TV, Audio Agent: Fiona Inglis (fiona@curtisbrown.com.au) Description: The Last Will and Testament of Henry Hoffman follows three brilliant and unconventional siblings, whose lives are upended when their reclusive German father, Henry, shoots himself. After the funeral his eldest daughter, Eleanor, finds a will in which he has left his entire estate to a woman she has never heard of. Hiding it from her brother and sister, Eleanor sets out to solve this mystery and uncover the confronting truth about her father’s past. Henry, though, is not the only Hoffman with secrets. In the months that follow, as his children fall out over their inheritance, they learn things about each other they could never have imagined. Ranging from rural Victoria to America and war-torn Europe, John Tesarsch’s second novel is an affecting tale of love, loss and survival. It explores subjects that affect us all: family conflict, guilt and redemption, and how trauma resonates across generations. Praise for The Philanthropist: “A pitch-perfect exploration of Australia’s great and good” The Australian ‘A fine piece of work.” John Banville John Tesarsch was born and raised in Melbourne. He has degrees in law and musicology, and has worked as a barrister and a solicitor. For some years he lived in Vienna, where he pursued a career as a musician before he turned to writing. After travelling widely he returned to Melbourne, where he now lives with his wife and two young children. His debut novel, The Philanthropist, was published in 2010.

6 Curtis Brown Australia / Rights Newsletter / www.curtisbrown.com.au

Non-fiction | 320 pp |

July 2015

CERTAIN ADMISSIONS Gideon Haigh A beach a body and a lifetime of secrets Published by: Penguin | Paperback Rights available: Film/TV via Jerry Kalajian Agent: Clare Forster (claref@curtisbrown.com.au) Description: Certain Admissions is Australian true crime at its best, and stranger than any crime fiction. It is real-life police procedural, courtroom drama, family saga, investigative journalism, social history, archival treasure hunt a meditation, too, on how the past shapes the present, and the present the past. On a warm evening in December 1949, two young people met by chance under the clocks at Flinders Street railway station. They decided to have a night on the town. The next morning, one of them, twenty-year-old typist Beth Williams, was found dead on Albert Park Beach. When police arrested the other, Australia was transfixed: twenty-four-year-old John Bryan Kerr was a son of the establishment, a suave and handsome commercial radio star educated at Scotch College, and Harold Holt's next-door neighbour in Toorak. Police said he had confessed. Kerr denied it steadfastly. There were three dramatic trials attended by enormous crowds, a relentless public campaign proclaiming his innocence involving the first editorials against capital punishment in Australia. For more than a decade Kerr was a Pentridge celebrity, a poster boy for rehabilitation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a fame that burdened him the rest of his life. Then, shortly after his death, another man confessed to having murdered Williams. But could he be believed? Praise for Certain Admissions: 'Haigh's work is a mesmerising detective story itself . . . [it] finds a new twist in the archives.' The Saturday Paper 'A beautifully written, tirelessly researched and ultimately very compelling and true story . . . Fascinating and tragic.' Herald Sun Gideon Haigh has been a journalist for more than thirty years, contributed to more than a hundred newspapers and magazines, written thirty books and edited seven others. His book On Warne won the British Sports Book Awards Best Cricket Book of the Year Award, the Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award, the Jack Pollard Trophy, and the Waverley Library Nib Award; it was also shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards Biography of the Year, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, and the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. The Office won the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction. Other recent titles include Uncertain Corridors: Writings on Modern Cricket, End of the Road? on Australia's automotive industry, and The Deserted Newsroom, about media in a digital age.

7 Curtis Brown Australia / Rights Newsletter / www.curtisbrown.com.au

Young Adult |

288 pp | August 2015

RISK Fleur Ferris When Taylor and Sierra cross the path of an online predator they are thrown into a dark world they didn't know existed. Can Taylor find Sierra's abductor in time, or should she be looking for a killer?

Publisher: Random House Australia |Paperback Rights available: Film/TV Agent: Tara Wynne (tara@curtisbrown.com.au) Description: Best friends Taylor and Sierra meet a hot guy in a chat room online. Both fall for Jacob's charms, but as usual, the more outgoing and vivacious Sierra overshadows Taylor and wins his attention. Taylor's devastated – Sierra already kissed Callum, Taylor's secret crush, over the summer holidays. Life's not fair, especially when Sierra's around. Moving quickly, Sierra sets up a date with Jacob on Friday after school. She asks Taylor and their friends to cover for her. Even though she's upset, Taylor is still Sierra's best friend and agrees to help. But Sierra abuses the favour and calls to say she's going to spend the night with her date. She doesn't come home all weekend, doesn't answer her phone and nobody's heard from her . . . Taylor is torn. She doesn't want to betray Sierra by telling her parents but at the same time she's concerned for her welfare. Finally, Callum convinces her to tell. The police are called and their worst fears are confirmed when Sierra's body is found miles from Melbourne a week later . . . Devastated, Taylor becomes obsessed with finding Sierra's killer. As clues emerge, Taylor races against time to try and save the predator's next victim. Fleur Ferris spent the first seventeen years of her life growing up on a farm in Patchewollock, North West Victoria. She then moved twenty times in twenty years. During this time, Fleur sometimes saw the darker side to life whilst working for Police and Ambulance Services. She now lives a more settled lifestyle on a rice farm in Southern New South Wales, with her husband and three young children. Fleur’s colourful and diverse background has given her unique insight into today’s society and an endless pool of experiences to draw from. When she isn’t weaving this through young adult fiction, reading or spending time with her family, you will find her with friends, talking about art, books and travel. 8 Curtis Brown Australia / Rights Newsletter / www.curtisbrown.com.au

| Middle Grade | 208pp | July 2015 |

THE MONEY TREE Tiffiny Hall Imagine living in a world where money really DOES grow on trees! But only Maxine knows …

Publisher: HarperCollins Rights available: Film/TV Agent: Clare Forster (claref@curtisbrown.com.au) Description: Twelve-year-old Maxine Edwards comes from a family that overflows with love, but isn't blessed with a lot of money. They have just moved to a new area, in an affluent neighbourhood, but the house they rent is mysteriously cheap. Maxine and her sister Fleur don’t have the cool things the other kids at their new school take for granted, and they are embarrassed about their run-down house. When Maxine finds a fifty-dollar note between the gaping floorboards in her bedroom, she can't believe it. As more and more money continues to poke through the cracks in her bedroom floor she discovers a real life money tree sprouting ten, twenty, fifty and one hundred dollar bills from its thick, lucrative branches. Maxine thinks money will solve all her problems. Finally she will be rich, popular and cool! But as the money tree grows, greed also flourishes. As it becomes harder to hide the secret from her parents Maxine realises being rich doesn't equate to happiness especially not for a family whose currency is love. When still at school, Tiffiny Hall won the John Marsden Award for creative writing. She is the author of the Roxy Ran children’s fiction series with HarperCollins Publishers, including White Ninja, Red Samurai and Black Warrior. Tiffiny has a Bachelor of Arts/Media and Communications and Diploma of Modern Languages (French) from the University of Melbourne, Certificate III & IV in Fitness and a Diploma of Sport (coaching) with a specialization in martial arts. Tiffiny is a 5th Dan black belt in Taekwondo with over 25 years of training and more than 15 National titles. She worked as a journalist before writing her first health book, How to create the Ultimate Body. This was followed by Weightloss Warrior, Fatloss for Good – the secret weapon and her Lighten Up cookbook (Hardie Grant). Tiffiny is a trainer on TV’s The Biggest Loser and continues to be a positive media role-model for health and fitness.

9 Curtis Brown Australia / Rights Newsletter / www.curtisbrown.com.au