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Pan Macmillan has announced that the Number One best-selling author C. J. Sansom will publish his eagerly awaited novel TOMBLAND in October this year. The book is the seventh of the Shardlake series and follows LAMENTATION. TOMBLAND involves Matthew Shardlake in a new murder case on behalf of the Lady Elizabeth, which takes him to Norwich where he finds himself caught up in the midst of Kett’s rebellion, the huge and dramatic peasant revolt of 1549. TOMBLAND will be available on October 18th, 2018.

Hosted by Claudia Winkleman, and judged by Mary Berry, Dan Doherty and Chris Bavin, BBC One’s Britain’s Best Home Cook puts the nation’s best home cooks to the test, and celebrates the delicious food being cooked in households all over the UK. The contestants will be asked to make their own version of dishes that ‘define modern British home cooking’ with an emphasis on individual flair. The judges will be looking for dishes that are special takes on well-loved classics, and that define a new benchmark of excellence. The challenges push the contestants to prove their technical abilities, resourcefulness and creativity as they fight for the title of Britain’s Best Cook. The series features three episodes, the first of which airs on Thursday 3rd of May 2018 at 8pm on BBC One, and will be available afterwards on iPlayer. The official companion cookbook, Britain’s Best Home Cook (BBC Books, 2018), with a foreword by Claudia Winkleman and recipes by Jordan Bourke is out now.

In his new documentary, ‘Britain’s Fat Fight’, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall reveals that we are losing an uphill battle with supermarkets and restaurants who are locked in fierce competition, which drives a trend towards increasingly unhealthy, sugary and fast foods. This is causing a health crisis, which Hugh believes will leave us ‘a nation of the stumbling sick’. In this series, Hugh urges food producers and restaurants to be more transparent about what they are selling and pushes the government to urgently tackle the health crisis. Hugh also challenges the people of Newcastle to lose 100,000lbs in a year. In this first instalment Hugh asks a group of seven-year-olds to do a supermarket shop without their parents and he is led directly to the cereal aisle to pick from brightly coloured and highly sugared breakfast options. He also looks at how location can affect access to healthy foods, and how we are being increasingly tempted by sugary snacks on-the-go. The first episode airs on BBC One at 21:00 on Wednesday 25th April and will be available on iPlayer afterwards. It will be followed by three further instalments at the same time over the coming weeks. Image: ANDREW HAYES-WATKINS

TV rights have been optioned to Eleven Film. Lucy Atkins is represented for this deal by Jane Villiers at Sayle Screen Inc., working with Lucy's literary agent Judith Murray at Greene & Heaton. THE NIGHT VISITOR is to be published in paperback by Quercus on 3 May. Professor Olivia Sweetman has worked hard to achieve a high-flying career as a TV presenter and historian, three children and a talented husband. But as she stands before a crowd at the launch of her new bestseller, she can barely pretend to smile. Her life has spiralled into deceit and if the truth comes out, she will lose everything. Only one person knows what Olivia has done: Vivian Tester, a housekeeper, who is Olivia's unofficial research assistant. But Vivian has secrets of her own. . . Praise for The Night Visitor and Lucy Atkins: ‘A fascinating, brilliant, creepy, intelligent novel’ Good Housekeeping ‘The tension is immediate and unrelenting…deceptive on every level, a gripping, Rendellesque read’ Mick Herron 'A complex, creepy and insidious novel' The Guardian 'Sinister, utterly compulsive . . . will keep your pulse racing until its dramatic denouement' Red Magazine 'An absolute cracker . . . Fantastic!' Sunday Mirror 'This atmospheric, propulsive novel creeps up on you like footsteps in the dead of night . . . a tingling layer of gothic suspense' Metro 'Fabulously dark' Woman & Home 'The rich characterisation makes for an alarmingly plausible riches-to-rags tale' Sunday Times 'Enjoyably creepy' Sunday Express 'Enthralling, creepy and endlessly twisty.' Heat 'A tense psychological thriller . . . keeps you gripped from the very first page.' Psychologies 'Such a sophisticated, layered read, I absolutely revelled in it. A wonderful, wonderful book. The plotting is superb but the real triumph is the characterisation. The moment I finished, I wanted to read it all over again' Clare Mackintosh 'Elegant, clever, beautifully written. Lucy Atkins is, quite frankly, a genius' Joanna Cannon 'Horribly, horribly compulsive. Brilliant' Fiona Barton 'Wonderfully creepy, in that clever way that is tied in with character, as much as plot and setting . . . ingenious' Sabine Durrant 'One of the most vivid, memorable and menacing characters I've ever read . . . Readers who enjoyed Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller will adore it' C.L. Taylor 'It put me in mind of Misery, and Rebecca. Splendidly tense, creepy and enjoyable' Sarah Hilary

Joseph Knox's SIRENS (Transworld, 2017) has been longlisted for the 2018 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. SIRENS, which Val McDermid called 'a powerhouse of noir', follows the career of the disgraced detective Aidan Waits as he’s forced into an undercover operation. It was followed in March 2018 by THE SMILING MAN, the second instalment of the Aidan Waits series. The prize's shortlist will be revealed on 27th May, and the winner will be announced on 19th July at the opening night of the 16th Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. A public vote, which opens on 1st July and closes on 14th July, will help select the winner alongside a panel of judges.

Michael Booth’s THE MEANING OF RICE (Jonathan Cape, 2017) has been shortlisted for the 2018 Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards in the 'Food Book' category. The award celebrates food writers who inspire a sense of curiosity and an urge to explore in their readers. As Lee Langley wrote in The Spectator, "Booth is drawn to the offbeat, and THE MEANING OF RICE gives us a banquet of the unfamiliar: seaweed caviar, live squid sashimi, sea-urchin tongues, snake soup, bonito guts, silkworm pupae, and more, with all their smells, flavours and textures." Booth shares the highs and lows of his adventure and offers deep insight into the culinary culture of Japan. The winners of the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards will be announced on May 10 2018.

Lottie Moggach’s debut novel, KISS ME FIRST, has been adapted into a six-part television series by Bryan Elsley, creator of Skins. KISS ME FIRST follows 17-year-old Leila (Tallulah Haddon) as she navigates a virtual paradise online that quickly proves itself to be something much more dangerous. The programme uses a combination of live action and computer-generated sequences to portray online personas alongside the real lives of the characters in the story. In doing so, the programme highlights the disparity between appearances and reality in the online world, and the resulting sense of isolation and loneliness. The first episode will air at 10pm on Monday 2nd April on Channel 4. Following the UK broadcast, the series will be available for streaming outside the UK on Netflix. The trailer is available to watch on the Channel 4 website.

Joseph Knox’s SIRENS has been shortlisted for Best Debut Fiction at this year’s British Book Awards. Knox’s book will compete with five other debuts, with the winner announced on Monday 14 May at a ceremony at the Grosvenor House hotel. SIRENS was published by Transworld in January 2017 and went on to become a bestseller. Critical response to the novel was enthusiastic: The Times claimed that the novel launched Knox “straight into the top league of English noir,” while Jake Kerridge of The Sunday Express called it “the stand-out crime debut of the year.” The second book in the series, THE SMILING MAN, was published in March 2018 to equally rapturous praise: The Sunday Times wrote that the Aidan Waits novels hold “the promise of a classic series,” and Val McDermid called Knox “the real deal.” Knox will be on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book to discuss THE SMILING MAN with Mariella Frostrup on Sunday 18 March at 4 pm.

The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook’s adaptation of Sarah Waters’s award-winning novel FINGERSMITH, has won the BAFTA for Best Film not in the English Language. At the awards ceremony on 18 February, The Handmaiden beat four other films to become the first Korean film to win a BAFTA. The film first screened at British cinemas in April 2017; it has since garnered great praise in the UK and the US, grossing over $37 million worldwide. In an interview with The Guardian, Waters described being struck by “how faithful it managed to be to FINGERSMITH even though it’s in Korean and Japanese and set in a different period,” with the novel’s Victorian England translated to 1930s Korea under Japanese occupation. FINGERSMITH was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes and was awarded the CWA Historical Dagger and the South Bank Show Award for Literature, among other prizes. Since its publication in 2003, the novel has been translated into 20 languages.

Viviane Schwarz is on the International Board on Books for Young People’s 2018 UK Honour List for her illustrations in I AM HENRY FINCH. The IBBY is a non-profit organisation that is committed to bringing quality books to children worldwide. The IBBY Honour List is a biennial selection of outstanding recently published books, honouring writers, illustrators and translators from IBBY member countries. Seven parallel sets of the books on the Honour List will circulate around the world at exhibitions during conferences and book fairs. I AM HENRY FINCH, a collaboration between Viviane and writer Alexis Deacon, was published in 2015 by Walker Books and went on to win the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award in 2016.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall stars in a new BBC Two series about the wildlife of the West Country, Hugh's Wild West. Filmed over the course of an entire year, the series follows Hugh as he pursues his passion for nature in the company of the South West's most dedicated wildlife enthusiasts. It features encounters with dolphins and wild boar, along with in-depth exploration of the South West's most cherished landscapes. Chris Bennion praised HUGH’S WILD WEST in The Times Saturday Review: "In the post-Christmas fug you may have missed this gentle new nature series fronted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall that started last week. It is, however, worth a slice of your Saturday night, because it provides a cleansing antidote to the slew of violent crime dramas and whizz-bang American box sets that you “Must. Watch. Now!” In fact, what it truly offers is an alternative to — as a now neatly trimmed Fearnley-Whittingstall enthuses his way around the west of England, seeking out its most interesting fauna — is the brilliant, but overblown Planet Earth/Blue Planet series. There’s a time for David Attenborough’s bombastic, Hans Zimmer-scored majesty, but there’s also a time for something quieter and more tangible. Few of us will swim with sharks or walk with polar bears, but most of us can spot a harvest mouse or catch a minnow. Last week Fearnley-Whittingstall was in the Wye Valley spotting dippers and lesser horseshoe bats, and this week he is on the Jurassic coast on the hunt for a creature that “seems to come from another planet”: the cuttlefish. With three hearts, blue blood and the ability to impersonate a moving magic-eye picture, the cuttlefish is peculiar indeed and Fearnley-Whittingstall tries to capture them on camera during breeding season. He also helps some volunteers on Chesil Beach to protect the little tern (a bird that makes “very bad life choices”), goes for a late-night tramp to spot glow worms, discovers the incredible nest-building ability of the black bream (“difficult to catch, delicious to eat”) and goes back to the rock pools of this youth to see if he can capture a few critters with naught but a two quid net. Created with the Open University, this 12-part series has been made to encourage us to get out and get to know Britain’s creatures. A new year’s resolution perhaps?" The programme airs on BBC Two on Saturdays at 6.15pm.

The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook's adaptation of Sarah Waters's award-winning novel FINGERSMITH, has been nominated for a BAFTA for Best Film not in the English Language. The film, which moves Waters's novel from Victorian England to 1930s Korea under Japanese occupation and rule, was first screened at Cannes in 2016 and at British cinemas in April 2017. It received great acclaim in the UK and the US, and has grossed over $37 million worldwide. FINGERSMITH was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes and was awarded the CWA Historical Dagger and the South Bank Show Award for Literature. Since its publication in 2003, the novel has been translated into 20 languages. The awards ceremony will take place on Sunday 18 February 2018.

We are pleased to announce that Michael Booth's THE MEANING OF RICE (Jonathan Cape, 2017) has been shortlisted for an André Simon Food and Drink Book Award. The award aims to highlight the best of contemporary food and drink writing, and this year the food category is being independently assessed by journalist Rachel Cooke. Peter Cary (i) praised Booth's 'light touch' with 'weighty topics', as 'the comedy does not diminish the informative heft of this foodie odyssey', while Lee Langley (The Spectator) called the book 'a masterclass in Japanese cuisine'. The winners will be announced at a ceremony at the Goring Hotel in London on Monday 12 February.

Many Greene & Heaton clients are scheduled to appear at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, which takes place 6-15 October. On 6 October, Anthony Anaxagorou will be chairing the Young Writers showcase of the festival's outreach programme; he will also be running a workshop on writing place in poetry on 7 October. On 7 October, Sarah Waters will be in conversation with Sunday Times chief fiction reviewer Peter Kemp as she accepts the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. Also on 7 October, Sumayya Usmani will share delightful Pakistani dishes from her book SUMMERS UNDER THE TAMARIND TREE, accompanied by poetry performances from Asma Elbadawi and Nafeesa Hamid as well as music from Pearls of Islam. On 9 October, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will discuss his new book, RIVER COTTAGE MUCH MORE VEG, with Tim Hubbard. On 11 October, Joseph Knox is going to be on a panel with Ali Land and Cathy Rentzenbrink, discussing his debut novel, SIRENS. On 11 October, Stuart Heritage will form part of "A Night Out For Knackered Dads" alongside Matt Coyne, Tim Dowling and Miles Jupp; he will also be discussing his new book, DON'T BE A DICK, PETE, on 12 October with Linda Blair and Cathy Rentzenbrink. On 13 October you can join Thomasina Miers for a delicious three course dinner, which will showcase recipes from her recent book HOME COOK. Finally, on 15 October Lucy Atkins will chair an event with author Sarah Moss.