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Penguin Random House UK Children’s has struck a string of deals for Emily Barr’s second YA novel, which had been sold into 13 territories by the eve of the fair.
Coming-of-age thriller The Truth and Lies of Ella Black has been snapped up in markets including Italy (Salani), Brazil (Verus Editora) and world Spanish and Catalan (Salamandra Ediciones). US rights went to PRH UK’s sister company Philomel/Penguin.
The rights blitz follows the success of Barr’s YA début The One Memory of Flora Banks (2016), which PRH has sold into 23 countries.
Editorial director Ruth Knowles originally bought world rights to both titles from Lauren Pearson at Curtis Brown for a six-figure sum, and rights director Zosia Knopp called the number of deals sealed thereafter “stunning”, adding: “We’re incredibly excited to be bringing Emily’s latest heart-stopping thriller to the fair and establishing her as the Paula Hawkins of the YA market.”
...Flora Banks is about “obsessive first love” and a teenage girl with anterograde amnesia (the inability to remember information encountered after its onset). The book, published in the UK in January, has shifted more than 10,000 units through Nielsen BookScan UK, and is the bestselling 2017-issued YA début to date.
...Ella Black, meanwhile, is a “race-against-time, exploring the highs and lows of first love, all set under a blazing Rio sun”. Its UK release is slated for January 2018.
Cornwall-based Barr has had 12 novels for adults published, all are loosely what would be termed psychological thrillers. Those dozen—all issued in the UK by Headline— have combined to shift £2.1m through Nielsen BookScan, with Barr’s 2001 début, Backpack, her top earner to date (£430,000).