Uplit debut Oona Out of Order to publish with Gollancz

Gollancz has pre-empted Margarita Montimore’s ‘uplit’ debut Oona Out of Order.

Rachel Winterbottom, commissioning editor at Gollancz, pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) in a deal with Flatiron Books at Macmillan US and will publish in spring 2020 in hardback, e-book and audio. 

For fans of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Time Traveler’s Wife", the book’s premise asks what it would be like for a young woman to have to live her life out of order. In the book, Oona Lockhart - 19 years old in Brooklyn 1982 - repeatedly finds herself resurfacing on the stroke of midnight in a different year of her own adulthood. The blurb reads: “Still a young woman on the inside, but ever changing on the outside, who will she be next year? Philanthropist? World traveller? Wife to a man she’s never met?”
 
Winterbottom said she was drawn to “the sharpness of Margarita’s prose, biting dialogue and the vividness of every scene”. She added Oona Out of Order “explores the notion of giving yourself to every life experience no matter what the outcome. 

Montimore said: “I've always been fascinated by stories involving time travel, so I decided to write one of my own, putting a different spin on it. When I came up with the concept of a young woman living her life out of order, I thought it could be interesting way to explore identity, family, romantic relationships, and the various ways the passage of time affects us. Oona Out of Order was an utter joy to write and, along the way, taught me a thing or two about living in the moment. I’m thrilled to be working with Gollancz to bring the book to readers in the UK."
 
Montimore, from Brooklyn, has worked for over a decade in publishing and social media and has a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. When not writing, she freelances as a book coach and editor. 

Her debut will be published as a £14.99 hardback and e-book, and will retail at £19.99 in audio, when it publishes in spring 2020.