We are delighted to announce that Riverrun editor Niamh Mulvey has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Rebecca Wait’s new novel Our Fathers from agent Caroline Hardman. Our Fathers tells the story of a murder-suicide on a small, remote island in the Hebrides and the resounding impact it has on a tight-knit community.

31-year-old Tom Baird is the only survivor of his father’s crime, but he returns to his secluded island home after years away to reckon with his past.

Niamh said: “I could not stop reading this manuscript when it came in – I was completely compelled by Becky’s ability to combine gentle and tender insights into her characters with an unflinching look at how violence and control can warp and destroy a family. It looks at the horror of family annihilation from the point of view of those obscured by the media narrative – the mother and children – and asks subtle but pointed questions about how communities deal with these events.”

Riverrun, an imprint of Quercus, will publish the novel in 2020. Rights to the powerful story have also been sold to Europa in the US, EO in Italy, and Kein & Aber in Germany.

Rebecca Wait graduated from Oxford University in 2010 with a first class degree in English. She’s been writing since she was a child and has won numerous prizes for short stories and plays. She lives in London. She is also the author of The View on the Way Down (Picador) and The Followers (Europa Editions).