HarperCollins acquires new Swann novel
HarperCollins has acquired ANZ rights to Leah Swann’s novel Later, Only Love Remains, in a deal brokered by Gaby Naher at the Naher Agency.
Described by the publisher as a “darkly beautiful, devastating and propulsive novel of literary suspense”, Later, Only Love Remains is set in a seaside community still recovering from a terrible tragedy. During a violent storm, Jack Wolfe holes up in his remote cabin with only his dog for company, still dealing with the loss of his wife Iris. That morning he’d been rude to Lotus, a young pregnant woman he had encountered on the beach.
“But later that night,” said the publisher, “when his dog starts howling and a mysterious stranger turns up at his door, wet and shivering, asking for help – he and Lotus may be the only ones who can save each other.”
Swann’s previous novel, Sheerwater (HarperCollins), won the 2021 Davitt Award for best debut novel, and her collection of stories, Bearings, was published by Affirm Press in 2011. She was the inaugural winner of the Overland Story Wine prize for her story “That Inward Eye”. Her literary fiction and essays have been published in Meanjin, The Best Australian Stories, The World to Come, Australian Love Stories, Award Winning Australian Writing, page seventeen, Review of Australian Fiction and more.
Swann said, “All I had when I began was a sound and a single image: a dog barking, and a young woman and old man sitting back-to-back. Inspired by the wild spirit of the Great Ocean Road, I followed this sound and image into an unexpected and intimate world, which I hope readers find immersive and compelling, with characters they grow to love as I have.”
Publisher Catherine Milne said, “I read this in two breathless, nail-biting sittings – once you embark on the novel, it just draws you in so completely, the tension pulls tighter and tighter, and as the story progresses, it is almost impossible to put down, it just rockets along – and the language, oh my god, the language in those final scenes is just breathtaking, so vivid, so extraordinary, so beautiful.
“This novel is masterful, accomplished, viscerally powerful and so moving – it is, quite simply, so good.”
HarperCollins has scheduled Later, Only Love Remains for June 2026.
Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions
