MY CURRENT PITCHES
NEW UNPUBLISHED BOOKS & RIGHTS FOR PUBLISHED WORK
SLEEPYTIME
Darkly funny dystopian thriller.
Wodehouse meets Kafka on Shutter Island.
Rob can't sleep. He’s been fired as an investigative journalist and his love life is a disaster. When a new doctor enlists him in a suspiciously well-paid sleep research project Rob jumps at the chance to make money – and write a novel he’s sure will be brilliant. Uh oh.
In a vast white labyrinth beneath a country mansion, Rob is subjected to increasingly weird experiments. He falls for fellow patient Nina – and she falls asleep, especially when he talks about his novel. She explains she's narcoleptic. She's convinced the project is sinister and persuades Rob they should leave. The doctors say they’re free to go, but a series of obstacles keeps preventing them. Finally, Rob confronts the project’s elusive Director – and blacks out. When he wakes up, the doctors tell him he experienced a fantasy, induced as part of the research. But Rob and Nina break into a secure area and discover they’re in a psychological warfare project. Rob blacks out again. When he comes around, the doctors explain it was another paranoid fantasy. They sedate him, but Nina rescues him, and they escape. They reach London and Rob arranges a meeting with journalist contacts. But on arrival he’s kidnapped – and blacks out. He wakes up back at the lab. The doctors say everything’s been a manipulated dream, including Nina. Rob almost believes them, but then Nina arrives with his media friends, who free him. Congratulations: he’s exposed a rogue MOD operation. But he struggles to get the story out – until a mysterious film company wants to make a drama-documentary about it, featuring Rob playing himself. He finds himself re-enacting his ordeal in a simulacram. As his sanity crumbles, Nina rescues him again. Unless it’s another fantasy.
Being paid to sleep could be the job of your dreams – or your worst nightmare.
Darkly funny dystopian thriller.
Wodehouse meets Kafka on Shutter Island.
Rob can't sleep. He’s been fired as an investigative journalist and his love life is a disaster. When a new doctor enlists him in a suspiciously well-paid sleep research project Rob jumps at the chance to make money – and write a novel he’s sure will be brilliant. Uh oh.
In a vast white labyrinth beneath a country mansion, Rob is subjected to increasingly weird experiments. He falls for fellow patient Nina – and she falls asleep, especially when he talks about his novel. She explains she's narcoleptic. She's convinced the project is sinister and persuades Rob they should leave. The doctors say they’re free to go, but a series of obstacles keeps preventing them. Finally, Rob confronts the project’s elusive Director – and blacks out. When he wakes up, the doctors tell him he experienced a fantasy, induced as part of the research. But Rob and Nina break into a secure area and discover they’re in a psychological warfare project. Rob blacks out again. When he comes around, the doctors explain it was another paranoid fantasy. They sedate him, but Nina rescues him, and they escape. They reach London and Rob arranges a meeting with journalist contacts. But on arrival he’s kidnapped – and blacks out. He wakes up back at the lab. The doctors say everything’s been a manipulated dream, including Nina. Rob almost believes them, but then Nina arrives with his media friends, who free him. Congratulations: he’s exposed a rogue MOD operation. But he struggles to get the story out – until a mysterious film company wants to make a drama-documentary about it, featuring Rob playing himself. He finds himself re-enacting his ordeal in a simulacram. As his sanity crumbles, Nina rescues him again. Unless it’s another fantasy.
Being paid to sleep could be the job of your dreams – or your worst nightmare.
ALFIE WITHEROW HAS QUESTIONS
YA novel
A coming-of-age comedy about love, grief, denial, prejudice, dreams, and how totally weird your family is. Adrian Mole meets Enola Holmes in a shabby seaside town to investigate suspected foul play.
Thirteen-year-old Alfie is devastated when his beloved Nana falls from a clifftop footpath in the run-down seaside town where he lives. Influenced by the true crime podcasts his mum loves, he convinces himself it’s not an accident and starts making an investigative podcast of his own. As he retraces his nana’s footsteps he finds memorial benches on the cliffs. He wants one for his nana. His parents help him petition the council, hoping it’ll distract him over the summer: he’s an only child, and he’s fallen out with his best friend. But there’s a rival claim for the only bench spot available: Dez Reddy and her daughter, Nasreen, want to commemorate Nas’s grandad, who also loved the clifftop walk. Alfie has an instant crush on Nasreen, who’s fourteen and mixed heritage, but when she and her mother win the battle for the bench, it exposes a streak of racism in Alfie’s dad.
Nasreen helps Alfie with his podcast. She wants to be a writer. Or maybe a rapper. Alfie is impressed; he still wants to be a bus driver. Nas’s lively imagination entrances Alfie and he finds himself investigating the real mystery: growing up. When Nas kisses him, he says he loves her. But her mum has a new job, and they’re leaving the town. An inquest reveals that Alfie’s nana suffered a heart attack before her fall. He realises that not every puzzle can be solved and some questions have no easy answers.
The next day he takes his skateboard to the park to reconcile with his best friend.
THE SPOTS AND OTHER STORIES
New collection of award-winning stories
Each of these stories won or was shortlisted for an award, including the Bristol Short Story Prize, the Fish Prize, and the Bath Short Story Award. The title story was praised by Stephen King, who said it was "Mordantly funny," and that "Poe would have liked it." They're strange, macabre, funny, warm and humane, and the subjects include a woke genie who likes Scotch whisky, the impact of dementia on a fractious family, and an unexpected ghost in a familiar machine.
New collection of award-winning stories
Each of these stories won or was shortlisted for an award, including the Bristol Short Story Prize, the Fish Prize, and the Bath Short Story Award. The title story was praised by Stephen King, who said it was "Mordantly funny," and that "Poe would have liked it." They're strange, macabre, funny, warm and humane, and the subjects include a woke genie who likes Scotch whisky, the impact of dementia on a fractious family, and an unexpected ghost in a familiar machine.
RIGHTS for all work
My novel STONE HEART DEEP was published in 2021. Since then a growing number of enthusiastic readers have pointed out that it would make a great film or TV series. They're right - and the screen rights (and other rights) are available for the book, and for all my other work.