Graduate of the Warwick Writing Programme Sophie Mackintosh has secured a publishing deal with Hamish Hamilton for her debut novel The Water Cure following a seven-way auction.

The novel is said to reveal "the brutality of love and the price of survival in a hostile world", tells the story of three daughters raised in an isolated coastal compound, cut off from the world and its men. Their parents tell them they are safe here - until the day three men wash up on the shore, strange and vulnerable and infinitely dangerous.

Hamish Hamilton have purchased the British and Commonwealth volume, audio and serial rights to The Water Cure from Sophie’s agent, Harriet Moore at David Higham Associates and will publish in summer 2018.

Sophie said it was "an absolute dream" to be taken on by the publisher, adding, "The Water Cure is a book very close to my heart, and I’m incredibly excited to be working on it with Hermione."

David Morley, Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies and Director of the Warwick Writing Programme at the University of Warwick said, “Our creative writing students are the hardest working group of young writers in the UK and they achieve superb results. But what comes after university is just as important and we follow our students' writing careers closely.

“Sophie is the latest of many successful graduates to achieve spectacular results for their creative writing in the real world. For a first-time author to have her novel in a seven-way auction is quite something - and the victor Hamish Hamilton is one of the world's top fiction publishers. Graduates such as Sophie are among the reasons why Warwick's creative writing programme is number one in the UK year after year. We are very proud of her.”

Hermione Thompson of Hamish Hamilton said, "The Water Cure is an astonishing novel: it unfolds seductively, like a dream (or a nightmare), yet speaks urgently to the concerns of our own world. It heralds the arrival of a radical new voice in literary fiction."

Last year debut novelist Sophie won the White Review Short Story Prize and the Virago/Stylist Short Story competition, and has been published in Granta Magazine, The White Review and TANK Magazine.

Warwick has been number one for Creative Writing for three years running (Times/Sunday Times league table) and is number one in The Complete University Guide.

The Warwick Writing Programme, founded in 1996, is the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in Europe. It is an internationally-acclaimed programme drawing students and staff from across the globe.

Contact:

Alex Buxton
Media Relations Manager

University of Warwick
Tel: 02476 150423
Mob: 07876 218166
a.buxton.1@warwick.ac.uk

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