A&U acquires Stroud’s “The Angry Wives Club”
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired world rights to The Angry Wives Club, a novel by Gabbie Stroud.
The Angry Wives Club follows three women “quietly planning a revolution”, said the publisher. Joany, Heather and Steph bond with one another at their gym and start asking hard questions about the lives they live and the rules they follow.
“And when the simmering rage starts to bubble over,” said the publisher, “these new friends decide a crime or two is in order.”
Living on Yuin Country on the far south coast of NSW, Stroud is a “novelist and recovering teacher”, said the publisher. In 2016, her critical commentary of Australia’s education system was published in Griffith Review’s Edition 51, “Fixing the System”, and was shortlisted for a Walkley Award.
Stroud’s subsequent memoir, Teacher (A&U), was shortlisted for Biography Book of the Year at the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards. In 2020, Stroud’s Dear Parents (also A&U) provided a call to action for parents. Her debut novel for adults, The Things That Matter Most, was published by A&U in 2023, and it was longlisted for Best Debut Fiction at the 2024 Indie Book Awards.
Stroud said, “The Angry Wives Club is the wild pop of champagne that marks my departure from education! I’ve got other stories to tell, and I’m so excited to write them. I am hugely grateful to the team at Allen & Unwin who have shown such confidence in me. So, brace yourselves for The Angry Wives Club – a book for any woman who’s ever wondered where her rage was coming from.”
Publisher Cate Paterson said, “I’ve never known an author to throw herself into a novel quite so genuinely and exuberantly. This feels like the novel Gabbie was born to write, and it is only the beginning of a career as a novelist of women’s stories.
“I was immediately swept up in the vitality of Gabbie’s writing. After reading this novel, you’ll feel motivated to stop accepting the things in your life that are giving you the shits!”
A&U plan to publish The Angry Wives Club in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand in April 2026.
Photo credit: Angi High.
Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions
