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23 November 2023

For Immediate Release

Complex Chinese Rights to Richard Sutton’s business and mental health guide THRIVE: THE POWER OF RESILIENCE have been bought by Global Group Holding Ltd.

We live in a world that demands perfection. Big data, analytics, trend lines and averages bind us to a set of norms and values that assign a numeric worth to who we are and what we are capable of. Should we fail to meet established milestones, conform to the appro­priate curve, meet established targets or live up to pre-established societal expectations, we (and those around us) invariably experience the burden of a sense of personal failure, worthlessness and fears and anxiety about a tenuous future. In truth it doesn’t matter where we come from, our historic circum­stances, how many milestones we may have missed, the fact that we may not have achieved the perfect average or whether we failed repeatedly over the course of our lifetime. We are all capable of extra­ordinary lives and should not be bound by limitations, whether self-imposed or from external sources. What can unlock our fullest potential is resilience, a con­summate skill that can be developed and grown throughout the journey of our lives.

Originally published in South Africa by Pan Macmillan, THRIVE is a resilience manual, a practical, step-by-step guide to help the reader actualise their fullest potential, regardless of their circumstances and the challenges they may face in their lives. The book will see an Australian edition from Penguin in April 2024.

Sutton is the author of the bestseller THE STRESS CODE, STRESSPROOF, and THRIVE. He is an adviser on stress management and adaptability to industry leaders, top athletes, and Olympic teams and an expert in the field of genetics and their role in resilience, using a combination of hard data and DNA to map a ‘stress footprint’ based on both nature and nurture to unearth genuine resilience, recovery, and adaptability. Richard has been a post-graduate lecturer in the areas of pain management, health and athlete development for almost two decades at leading South African and international universities.

The deal was negotiated by Aoife Lennon-Ritchie of The Lennon-Ritchie Agency. For more information, email info@lennonliterary.com. World English language rights, excluding Southern Africa went to Watkins Media.

Hearty congratulations to Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, whose novel THE QUALITY OF MERCY has been shortlisted for South Africa’s most coveted literary award, the SUNDAY TIMES Fiction Prize. Ndlovu won the prize previously with her debut, THE THEORY OF FLIGHT, and was again shortlisted for her book THE HISTORY OF MAN.

THE QUALITY OF MERCY tells the story of Spokes Moloi, a police officer of spotless integrity, who, on the eve of his retirement, investigates one final crime. Spokes is working the case of the possible murder of Emil Coetzee, head of the sinister Organisation of Domestic Affairs, who disappeared on the same day a ceasefire was declared on the cusp of their country’s independence. In following the tangled threads of Coetzee’s life, Spokes raises and resolves conundrums that have haunted him, and his country, for decades under colonial rule. In all this, he is staunchly supported by his paragon spouse, Loveness, and his unofficially adopted daughter, the unorthodox postman Dikeledi.

In this magnificent novel, Ndlovu showcases the history of a country transitioning from a colonial to a postcolonial state with a deft touch and a compassionate eye for poignant detail. THE QUALITY OF MERCY recently won Zimbabwe’s National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) for outstanding fiction. The novel is published in South Africa by Penguin Random House and in the United States by Catalyst Press. For rights information, contact The Lennon-Ritchie Agency.

Kurt Ellis’s taut South African thriller IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES has just been optioned for screen adaptation by The Ergo Company.

Producer Dumi Gumbi says this about the novel: ‘I just love how Kurt Ellis writes – his words leap off the page – as a producer I have been looking for a piece of material that can make a great cop/crime thriller high-end series and Kurt writes so evocatively and cinematically – one can see the story play out in one’s mind.’

IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES tells the story of Nick Creed, expert criminal profiler, who hunts down human monsters for a living. Back in South Africa after working with the FBI, he is haunted by his past mistakes, including the death of his fiancée. When a young woman is murdered and dismembered in her Johannesburg apartment, Creed’s long-time friend and head of the SAPS’ Investigative Psycho
logical Unit, Major Eli Grey, enlists his help in investigating the murder – an attempt to save the self-destructing Creed from himself. But not all the Unit’s members welcome his involvement, and there are those intent on exposing his secrets while the murder is being solved. The young woman’s community are convinced she was the victim of a witch called Nomtakhati, but Creed’s hunch points to an angry ex-boyfriend. Who, or what, is really behind the murder? Could it be Nomtakhati, who believes Nick Creed is uSatane?

IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES is a dark psychological thriller about metaphorical demons from the past and the living monsters who target the innocent by the author of the thrillers BY ANY MEANS and CHAIN OF CAUSE. Ellis is a past winner of the Harry Oppenheimer Creative Writing Award, and holds a creative writing master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. He lives in Johannesburg with his wife, daughter and son.

Also published in Ukraine, IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES was first published in South Africa by Penguin Random House, who will be publishing Ellis’s newest novel, CHAIN OF CAUSE, in 2024.

Writer and acclaimed writing coach Helen Brain’s dystopian series, THE FIERY SPIRAL, has been optioned for screen adaptation by DG Pictures.

Veteran South African producer Dumi Gumbi of DG Pic­tures says: ‘I absolutely love it. I think it’s a wonderful story, with a diverse cast of characters, and set in an amazing world that is a paral­lel or alternative reality, but also very recog­nisable Cape Town. So it allows us to draw on many of the richness of our country and heritage, but it’s an alternative history.’

THE FIERY SPIRAL tells the story of 16-year-old Ebba van Eeden who has never known life outside the underground bunker known as the Colony. When she is suddenly ‘elevated’, she must leave everyone she has ever known and join the elite on the surface. Why has she been elevated, and who is the mys­terious great aunt who has left her a fortune? As the last remaining genetic link to the earth Goddess Gya, Ebba is the only person who can retrieve the six missing amulets which will restore the Goddess’ power, and turn back the God Prospero, whose greed and vengeance have almost destroyed Earth.

Helen Brain lives in Cape Town and has written over 50 books for children. She is also a much-admired teacher of creative writing.