Puffin swoops on Half Bad ahead of Bologna

Puffin has made a "major acquisition" ahead of the Bologna Children's Book Fair, billing YA title Half Bad by British debut author Sally Green as being "undoubtedly the book of the fair".

Half Bad is the first title in the Half Life trilogy, and is described as "a supernatural thriller set in a modern world inhabited by covert witches, Black and White: factions divided by hatred and united by only one thing-fear of a boy descended from both sides."

Editorial director Ben Horslen secured world rights in the title with a pre-emptive bid that won over "multiple, very strong six-figure offers from both the UK and the US", from Claire Wilson at Rogers, Coleridge and White. It is the editor's first acquisition at the publisher.

Horslen said: "Half Bad is the most confident debut novel I have read in years. Sally Green is that rarest of creatures-a natural born writer, with a voice as distinctive and original as her characters." The book will be published under the Penguin imprint.