Six contemporary romance book deal for English lecturer
A new series of six romance novels for award-winning publisher Boldwood Books will be written by a Manchester Met English lecturer and bestselling contemporary novelist.
Writing under the name Kiley Dunbar, Dr Kirsty Bunting will pen a romance series set around a repair café in the Scottish Highlands.
Signing with Independent Publisher of the Year Boldwood Books, Dr Bunting’s first novel in the new series will be published in July 2025, with the following five to be published up to Christmas 2027.
They will follow the success of Dr Bunting’s bestselling ‘Borrow a Bookshop’ series (Canelo) and will take inspiration from the international repair café revolution.
Dr Bunting said: “My novels centre on special places and communities and tend to follow a pattern of heartbreak and emotional problems, towards happy ever afters at the end, along with healing and repair.
“As well as capturing the spirit of an ethical and sustainable movement, the café is also a great metaphor for the personal journey of Ally, the central character in my first book whose father owns the repair café.
“I’m also planning a follow on with Ally’s twin brother Murray. I can’t wait to get started and see where inspiration takes me.”
Teaching creative writing at Manchester Met’s Manchester Writing School, Dr Bunting shares her commercial writing experiences with students who have themselves gone on to write their own novels on the MA creative writing programme. She added: “On my course we have a focus on commercial bestselling contemporary fiction.
“It’s a growing area at Manchester Writing School and we’re finding that increasingly students are wanting to write commercial fiction in, say, the romance, crime or fantasy genres, and learn how to do it well, which we can help with.”
Dr Bunting’s latest deal follows several recent literary successes for Manchester Met lecturers, including Andrew Hurley’s new chilling folk horror novel Barrowbeck, and Jeremy Craddock’s true crime book The Lady in the Lake.
