PRH Children’s pre-empts world rights in Zurcher debut

Penguin Random House (PRH) Children’s has pre-empted the world rights to Twelve Nights, the debut children’s book by Andrew Zurcher, director of studies in English at Queen’s College Cambridge.

The novel is about a girl called Kay and her little sister Eloise. One Christmas Eve they begin a 12-night odyssey across worlds as they try to find their missing father and reunite their family.

Publisher Ruth Knowles bought world rights in a two-book deal with Adam Gauntlett at Peters, Fraser + Dunlop (PFD).

Knowles said: ‘This book is something very special – the kind that every editor dreams of discovering; the kind that gives you goosebumps from the off because the writing, characters and setting are all so vivid.

"Andrew has created an incredible world that will transport readers aged 9 to 99 in the way Narnia does, the way Hogwarts does, the way the BFG’s Dream Country does. It took only the first – beautifully written – three chapters before the whole team at PRH was in love.”

Publication of Twelve Nights is scheduled for 2018.

Zucher is also the author of several academic publications, including Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene: A Reading Guide (Edinburgh University Press) and Shakespeare and Law (Arden Critical Companions).