London Book Fair Children's/YA Rights Guide 2020
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Children’s and YA Books 2020 CONTENTS YOUNG ADULT FICTION & NON-FICTION 3 MIDDLE-GRADE FICTION 14 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS 28 IlLLUSTRATORS 32 BACKLIST & ESTATES 38 CONTACT 48 YOUNG ADULT FICTION & NON-FICTION YOUNG ADULT FICTION THE SUMMER EVERYTHING HAPPENED by Jane Claire Bradley Junk by Melvin Burgess meets Jenni Fagan's The Panopticon. Directly informed by the author’s experiences growing up mixed-race, poor and queer on a Salford council estate, The Summer Everything Happened explores themes of home, trauma and identity – asking the question: can you ever really escape who you are and where you’re from? Agent: Silvia Molteni Winner of the Northern Debut of the Year at the Northern Writers Awards. Longlisted for the Mslexia On submission Children's and YA Novel Competition. Age: 14+ Meet Cookie: so nicknamed because she’s smart and tough Genre: Contemporary, (and because her mum doesn’t like her using her real realistic name). Cookie and her best friend Ash are sixteen, inseparable and have just finished their GCSEs. Unsure what's next but unable to face another summer on their Salford council estate, Cookie contacts her cousin, Bea, a wild child currently managing a bar in Ibiza. With no money, no passport, and a mentally ill mother struggling with PTSD from events in her past, spending the summer in Ibiza initially seems like an impossible dream for Cookie, but she and Ash are determined to get themselves to the hedonistic clubbers' paradise. But once on the White Isle, things get complicated: Ash is caught up in a risky holiday romance, Cookie's entangled in secrets, lies and dangers extending from Ibiza to home, and there's a storm coming in more ways than one. Jane Claire Bradley is a writer, educator and therapist based in Manchester, writing mostly about being young, queer and working class. Jane is the founder and co-director of For Books' Sake (wwww.forbookssake.net), the non-profit championing women and non-binary writers through a nationwide programme of live events, workshops, writing retreats and other projects. 4 YOUNG ADULT FICTION EASTLAND by Nadine Doolittle X Files meets Stranger Things; Nadine Doolittle’s EASTLAND is inspired by the Danish folktale Agnete and the Merman and The Haunting of Hill House. The story blends supernatural mystery with elements of fantasy and romance. Eastland was a spit of sand and rock severed from the American mainland and marooned in the Atlantic Ocean. Accessed by ferry over a choppy channel of water. I watched the coastline disappear behind me, feeling like I Agent: Lucy Irvine was leaving the known world... On submission A cryptic message from her dying mother haunts seventeen-year-old Wren Caldwell when she’s sent to an Age: 14+ island off the coast of Maine for the summer. Eastland is unsettling—an impression reinforced by Colin Garrity, the Genre: Supernatural, brother of a missing boy, and by a strange encounter with paranormal, horror Jamie Harnett, a popular high school student. When a vision of a boy in a red sweater draws Wren to an abandoned mansion called Eastmuir, she teams up with Colin to find his brother while at the same time finding herself drawn to Jamie. Plunged into a supernatural world that is somehow connected to her mother’s dying words, Wren soon realises that a malignant evil is taking possession of the Island, one that is as compelling as it is destructive... Nadine Doolittle was born in British Columbia and now lives in the wilds of Quebec, where she writes full time. Her debut novel, Iced Under, (Bayeux Arts Press, Calgary) was shortlisted for Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel in 2009. Her second book, The Grey Lady, was published by Toronto's McArthur and Company in 2012 and her third in the series, The River Bride was published in 2014. Eastland is her first Young Adult novel. 5 YOUNG ADULT FICTION THE UNDYING TOWER by Melissa Welliver The first instalment in a political trilogy set in a future world in which an overpopulation crisis has caused society to collapse, The Undying Tower is The Hunger Games for 2020. ‘Melissa Welliver has no problem inventing adventures and once she’s let loose she’ll run and run’ Jeanette Winterson When the world discovered that a small percentage of the Agent: Lucy Irvine population stopped aging, it tore itself apart. Fifty years later, The Avalonia Zone is one of the only civilisations On submission left. A place where healthcare is restricted; religion is banned; hangings are televised; and the terrorist group the Three-book series Alchemists fight for Undying rights. Age: 14+ Sadie cares for her father and yearns for a heart Genre: Political future transplant for him. But after she is injured in a terrorist attack and a blood test reveals her to be one of the Undying, she and her family are no longer eligible for med- ical treatment. The government give Sadie an ultimatum: find the Alchemist leak inside the Tower, the highest security Undying prison in the country, and her father can have his heart transplant. As Sadie probes deeper into what she always considered a criminal underworld, she begins to realise that there is more to the Undying than is reported on the news. And when she discovers the Tower’s darkest secret, will she risk everything to save the Undying, or will she abandon them to save her father? Melissa Welliver studied Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. Her work has listed in Bath Novel Award; Mslexia; the #BNAKids Award; and was recently shortlisted for the inaugural Hachette Children’s Novel Award. She has been published in two short story collections. The Undying Tower is her first novel. 6 YOUNG ADULT FICTION WITCHES OF ASH AND RUIN by E. Latimer Modern witchcraft blends with ancient Celtic mythology in a mesmerizing novel that’s perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab’s Shade of Magic trilogy and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. With razor-sharp prose and achingly real characters, E. Latimer crafts a sweeping, mesmerizing story of dark magic and brutal mythology set against a backdrop of contemporary Ireland that’s impossible to put down. Seventeen-year-old Dayna Walsh is struggling to cope Agent: Silvia Molteni with her somatic OCD; the aftermath of being outed as US publisher: Little Brown bisexual in her conservative Irish town; and the Books for Young Readers return of her long-absent mother, who barely seems like a parent. But all that really matters to her is ascending and US editor: Alvina Ling finally, finally becoming a full witch—plans that are complicated when another coven, rumoured to have a US publication: 3 March sordid history with black magic, arrives in town with 2020 premonitions of death. Page extent: 384 Dayna immediately finds herself at odds with the bewitchingly frustrating Meiner King, the Age: 14+ granddaughter of their coven leader. And then a witch turns up murdered at a local sacred site, along with the Genre: Fantasy blood symbol of the Butcher of Manchester—an infamous Rights sold: serial killer whose trail has long gone cold. Audio US (Listening Library) Spanish and Catalan The killer’s motives are enmeshed in a complex web of (Editorial Planeta) witches and gods, and Dayna and Meiner soon find themselves at the center of it all. If they don’t stop the Butcher, one of them will be next... E. Latimer lives in Canada. Her breakout success on the online writing platform, Wattpad.com, has resulted in a fan base of nearly 90k followers, with over 20 million combined reads. Her first MG novel, The Strange and Deadly Potraits of Bryony Gray was published by Tundra Books in February 2018. Witches of Ash and Ruin is her first Young Adult novel. 7 YOUNG ADULT FICTION WE ARE NOT OKAY by Natália Gomes From the author of Dear Charlie and Blackbird, comes a new provocative and eye-opening novel for young adults, perfect for fans of Thirteen Reasons Why, All The Bright Places, and Girl Online. ‘Beautifully written [...] sensitively portrayed and ultimately uplifting, this book deals with serious issues and their potential outcomes’ Goodreads reviewer ‘A gripping, eye-opening YA novel that I wish I could put in everyone's hands’ Pretty Little Memoirs on Dear Charlie Agent: Silvia Molteni Four girls. Four voices. All unheard. UK Publisher: HQ Young Adult Lucy loves to gossip. If she’s pointing fingers at everyone else, no-one will see the secret she’s hiding. UK editor: Sarah Goodey Ulana comes from a conservative Muslim family where Publication: 2 May 2019 reputation is everything. One rumour – true or false – can destroy futures. Page extent: 320 Age: 14+ Trina likes to party, and she’s kissed a lot of boys at school. But she didn’t say ‘yes’ that night… and Genre: Contemporary, no-one believes her. realistic Sophia loved her boyfriend. She did everything for him. Previous works: When he asked her to pose for photos, she didn’t hesitate Blackbird (HQ, 2017) – but then he betrayed her trust. So why’s she the one Dear Charlie (HQ, 2016) being shamed? What happens when the friends you should be turning to are turning against you? Natália Gomes is completing an MLitt in Literature and Creative Writing. She also holds an M.Ed. in Education and worked for several years in the US public education system. Her first novel, Dear Charlie, was published in 2016, followed by Blackbird in 2017 and We Are Not Okay in 2019. Gomes currently lives in Scotland. 8 YOUNG ADULT FICTION BLACKBIRD by Natália Gomes ‘A study of grief and how tragic events can push us apart or bring us together’ IShouldReadThat ‘A raw, emotional book’ Goodreads reviewer Olivia disappeared the night the blackbirds died.