We're delighted to announce that one of our first MA Creative Writing graduates, Penny Hancock, has secured a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster, following an intense bidding war.

The first of the two novels, Tideline, has drawn comparisons with the writing of Belinda Bauer, Sophie Hannah, Minette Walters and Nicci French. A rich and atmospheric psychological thriller set by the Thames in Greenwich, it is the story of a respectable married woman, Sonia, who one afternoon answers the door to fifteen-year-old Jez, the nephew of a family friend. She invites him in and doesn't let him leave. Sonia's estranged husband, her twenty-one-year-old daughter and Jez's own family, falling apart under the stress of his disappearance, all remain oblivious to Sonia's secret, and as events run an increasingly sinister course, we realise she will stop at nothing to keep it.

Francesca Main, commissioning editor, said: "This is a masterfully controlled, beautifully written and utterly mesmerising novel with a darkly evocative setting. I loved the unwavering composure of Sonia's first-person voice, despite her increasingly unnerving actions, and the gradual reveal of the events in the past that have unhinged her. This is a story of obsessive desire and the destructive power of memory that gets right under the skin. I'm delighted that we'll be publishing Penny, who no doubt has a glittering future ahead of her."

Simon & Schuster will publish Tideline in trade paperback and bespoke limited edition hardback in Spring 2012. The novel was the subject of substantial foreign rights interest at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

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