Faber's Swan dives for award-winner Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick's first foray into middle-grade

Carnegie-shortlistee Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick will move into middle-grade with a "showstopping" novel set on a magic-rich island where "umbrellas fly, library books choose themselves and the very buildings are enchanted".

Faber associate publisher Alice Swan bought world rights to two books in Fitzpatrick’s Cloud Witch Chronicles series from Eunice McMullen at the Eunice McMullen Literary Agency. The first in the deal, The Museum of Lost Umbrellas, will publish in February 2025. 

Dublin-born Fitzpatrick has been an author/illustrator of picture books and writer of fiction for older readers since she was first published in 1988. She is the recipient of numourous prizes, including 10 BBI [Children’s Books Ireland] Book of the Year Awards. Her début Young Adult novel, 2020’s On Midnight Beach, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.   

The Museum of Lost Umbrellas centres on Dilly Kyteler who, while visiting the tiny island of Ollipest discovers that she comes from a long line of Cloud Witches. When she goes to the island’s Museum of Lost Umbrellas to trace her heritage, she and her friends find themselves caught in a battle between those who support magic and those who are against it.

Fitzpatrick said the series was "a love letter to the books of my childhood, the ones that tugged me in and let me be a part of their stories and their worlds". It is also partly inspired by Alice Kyteler, who in the 13th century became the first person in Ireland to be recorded of having been accused of witchcraft.

Swan said the book was "an unbelievably assured and showstopping first middle-grade" which "combines the magic of a small-island life with actual magic, and kicks off a series that children are going to absolutely fall in love with".