ASK THE AGENT Richard Lee Talks with Kevan Lyon of the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency
really did all the heavy lifting. And then this editor chimed in with some ideas, and then Kate was off to the races.’ Even so, it wasn’t an instant sell. Initially they sent a proposal of ‘100 pages or so’ of the book that became The Alice Network because ‘she’s a gripping writer. I absolutely couldn’t put it down. But people wanted to see the full novel, so we ended up having to go on submission with the full novel. And HarperCollins is very happy that they identified the book as a winner.’ Chanel Cleeton’s success story seems similarly meteoric, but with similar bumps in the road. ‘Chanel is a true success story of someone who had the raw talent. We just needed to find the right lane for her passion for writing, and from a fan and sales standpoint.’ And I’m thinking: what does this actually mean? What is ‘raw talent’ if it’s anything at all, and how do you ‘just’ find the ‘right lane’? Kevan initially signed a young adult novel by Chanel, but that book didn’t sell, so she ‘moved to romance’. That ‘never took off’ as her ‘writing and her storytelling ability deserved’, Kevan notes. ‘So we asked her publisher if they would consider a historical novel that she would like to write. That was Next Year in Havana, and it was pulled from family history. Berkley, to their credit, bought that novel on almost nothing more than a short synopsis and an idea. #OwnVoices wasn’t the push then that it is now. So really again, timing was just very fortunate. And the book delivers. Then we got the happy news that Reese Witherspoon had picked it as a Book Club pick, and that just catapulted Chanel onto an entirely new professional track.’
We first chat about Kevan’s ‘Lyonesses’, a group of her clients who became friends through HNS conferences. ‘They hatched the idea of the Group. They’re all terrific. They talk on Facebook Live periodically, swap industry rumours, that kind of thing. And when there’s a cover reveal or a release, they post all over social media. It’s a great group.’ And a successful group. New York Times bestsellers, Reese Witherspoon Book Club Picks – quite the group to join. What excites me is how they achieved their success because, quality of the writing aside, each seems to have blossomed significantly under the nurture of Kevan Lyon. It is early morning in San Diego and Kevan sits in a noticeably white-walled and clutter-free office. There are no knickknacks or distractions here. There is a single large promotional poster for The Alice Network, so it seems natural to begin with Kate Quinn. Kate signed with Kevan – who was recommended to her by writer friends – after her previous agent died. At that stage Kate was writing Renaissance Italy ‘and kind of had to do a reboot because ... the sales had slowed’. The ‘positioning of the books by the publisher’ was not right, Kevan says, though she ‘went on submission with another book in the Italian world and got turned down.’ So they looked at new ideas. Kevan suggested moving to the 20th century, ‘We talked about a dual timeline. And then Kate took it and ran with it. She
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COLUMNS | Issue 96, May 2021
As a third case study, take Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. Laura is a prolific romance writer, but also a professor of American History. Stephanie was coming to the end of a series published by Berkley about Cleopatra’s daughter. Together they came up with an ambitious idea based on their shared love of American history, which became America’s First Daughter, about Patsy Jefferson. ‘And we sold that on proposal as well, because it’s a big book and they did not write the whole thing. The editor that bought that is the same one who bought The Alice Network, so she and I obviously have similar taste – and that book really was the beginning of a new direction for both Stephanie and Laura. They did My Dear Hamilton next, which also went on to a huge success. And then Stephanie went out with a solo project, The Women of Chateau Lafayette: three time periods, three amazing women, three very different stories that are all intertwined in the end. That is one to definitely put on your reading list! And we just sold a book for Laura Kamoie, her first solo historical, that will come out in 2022.’ Kevan’s client list features many other names who have had similar success, some of them similar transformations. In the course of our conversation we talk about Jennifer Robson, Janie Chang, Alison Stuart, Gillian Bagwell, Kaia Alderson, Natasha Lester – and I wonder if there is something they all have in common. What draws Kevan to an author? What really matters in a novel? ‘It’s narrative voice that captures you... It’s so easy to lapse into ‘telling’. You’re trying to catch the reader up on the history and the background and all of that, and it’s often one of the big, weak links in a new historical novelist’s work. But some authors, right away, you’re very much caught up in those worlds... you’re in the scene with the characters.’ So it’s the voice that counts - the ‘hook’ can come later?
