Aria acquires Lette backlist, new novels

UK publisher Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus, has acquired The Revenge Club and a second title from author and comedian Kathy Lette, reports the Bookseller. Editorial director Rachel Faulkner-Willcocks acquired world language rights from David Headley at the D H H Literary Agency.

The Revenge Club explores ‘the residual sexism women face’ and follows the lives of four women in their 20s, who ‘forged an intense and life-defining friendship—only to see it crash and burn with disastrous effect’. Thirty years later, the estranged friends are happy and successful, but as they reach their 50s, they find themselves put out to pasture, undermined by the men in their lives. Determined not to take their betrayal lying down, the women reunite to wreak revenge and, at the same time, discover hidden strengths and surprising new desires for their second acts.

The Aria deal includes several of Lette’s backlist titles, including Mad Cows (Transworld) and How to Kill Your Husband (Penguin), plus two novels yet to be published in the UK, HRT: Husband Replacement Therapy and Till Death, or a Little Light Maiming, Do Us Part (both Penguin).

Now based in the UK, Lette achieved success as a teenager with the novel Puberty Blues, co-authored by Gabrielle Carey and first published in 1979 by McPhee Gribble. The novel was made into a major film in 1981 and a TV mini-series from 2012.

The Revenge Club will be published in the UK in hardback, audio and ebook in March 2024.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions