Book news: Firefly signs dreamlike novel from Zillah Bethell

Penny Thomas, publisher at award-winning children’s and young adult (YA) publisher Firefly Press, has acquired UK and Commonwealth Rights to Vanishing Edge by Zillah Bethell from the literary agent Julia Churchill at A.M. Heath.

Set somewhere between Port Talbot’s Sandfields estate and the horizon, Vanishing Edge is a dreamlike, fantastical novel, structured by the town’s omnipresent steelworks.

A postcard to the love-hate relationship between best friends, and the love-hate relationship with your hometown, the novel pulses with the tidal pull and push of family ties, and with dreams of escape.

One day Apricot Jones wakes up to graffiti on her front door, and a man in a black Jaguar who calls himself the Baglan Giant looking for her mum, Carys. Apricot and her best friend Charlie must find the secret that Carys is keeping and come to terms with the losses in their own lives while reaching out for new beginnings. But who is the boy waiting for Apricot in the speedboat beyond the breakers…

Vanishing Edge is a darkly comic tale of what it means to be alive, seventeen and living in Port Talbot.

No shoes

Zillah Bethell was born in Papua New Guinea and didn’t own a pair of shoes until she came to the UK when she was eight. She read English at Wadham College, Oxford and lives in south Wales with her family. Zillah has published three adult novels on subjects ranging from depression to the Paris communes and artist Gwen John. Her work for children includes four middle-grade novels: A Whisper of Horses, The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare, The Shark Caller (children’s book winner of the Wales Book of the Year 2022 and longlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award) and Song Walker (shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal 2024)

Quality fiction

Firefly Press is an independent children’s and YA publisher, publishing quality fiction for 5–19 years olds. Winner of the Wales Small Press of the Year Nibbies Award 2024, 2023, 2021 and 2020, Firefly is the publisher of The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros, winner of the YOTO Carnegie Medal for Writing 2023 and Skrimsli by Nicola Davies, winner of the Wales Book of the Year children’s novel, 2024 and longlisted for the Wainwright Prize.

Joyous

Penny Thomas, from Firefly Press said: ‘Zillah Bethell has been one of my favourite writers for many years. Her writing is by turns fantastical, direct, elusive and joyous, and always pushes the boundaries. In this dreamlike portrayal of life for two teens in the steelwork’s town of Port Talbot, she manages to bring us a realism that isn’t gritty, humour, pathos and, as always, food for thought!’

Zillah Bethell said: ‘Under the steerage of Penny Thomas, Firefly is doing hugely exciting things in publishing which I’m super-honoured to be a part of.’

Slated for publication in March 2025, Vanishing Edge is the first in a series of short novels for children and young adults inspired by life in contemporary Wales. Books to follow include titles from Emma Smith-Barton and Patience Agbabi. The initiative is supported by the Books Council of Wales.