PRH acquires Mounser’s dark suspense novel

Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has acquired Oceania rights to The House at Hanger Hill by Ashleigh Mounser, via Michaela McGuire at a4 Literary in a two-book deal.

Internationally, The House at Hanger Hill was also acquired for simultaneous publication by Catherine Richards at Minotaur Books/St Martin’s Press (North America), via Gráinne Fox at UTA, and by Zulekhá Afzal at Baskerville/John Murray Press (United Kingdom) via Veronique Baxter at David Higham Associates, on behalf of Michaela McGuire.

According to the publisher, The House at Hanger Hill is a ‘dark psychological suspense set in an old house in Canyonleigh’, regional NSW. Just after her 18th birthday, Betty is drawn into an investigation with a detective to solve an old mystery that took place in her home and the only person who knows the truth is Betty’s mother.

Mounser (How to be Cooler than the Moon, Ford Street Publishing) is a writer, poet, and film writer. She was the 2012 Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Writer of the Year, the Future Leaders Writing Competition winner, and the University of Melbourne ‘Time to Write’ contest winner.

PRH commercial fiction publisher Beverly Cousins said: ‘The House at Hanger Hill is a masterclass in suspense with a gothic edge: bold, inventive, delightfully creepy and full of twists and turns that will have her readers gripped from first page to last.’

Discussing the novel, Mounser said: ‘I wrote The House at Hanger Hill in the prolonged lockdowns of 2021, when I became interested in the horror of isolation, and the altering of self that can occur in seclusion. Inspired by thrillers with a pulsing gothic heart like Gone Girl, Charlotte McConaghy’s Once There Were Wolves, and the work of Shirley Jackson, I set out to write a book that couldn’t be read the same way twice.’

PRH plans to release The House at Hanger Hill in early 2027.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions