Abacus acquires Clarke's ‘moving’ story of families united by a transplanted heart

Abacus has acquired Dr Rachel Clarke’s The Story of a Heart, which “tells the extraordinarily moving story of how two families, united by one transplanted heart, changed medical history in the UK".

Richard Beswick acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander. US rights were sold at auction to Scribner. It will be published in September 2024 in hardback, e-book and audiobook.

Clarke is most recently the author of the books  Breathtaking: the UK’s human story of Covid and Dear Life: A Doctor’s Story of Love and Loss (Little, Brown). Earlier this week, ITV announced it has commissioned a drama based on Breathtaking. The adaptation is written by Clarke, Jed Mecurio and Prasanna Puwanarajah and will star Golden Globe award-winning actress Joanne Froggatt. The three-part series will be broadcast in late 2023.

Before going to medical school, Clarke was a television journalist and documentary maker. She now specialises in palliative medicine. She said of her new book: “As soon as I learned about Max Johnson and Keira Ball, I was captivated by the way in which their stories became entwined around a single, shared heart.

“I wanted to try and recreate as faithfully as possible the astonishing journey of Keira’s nine-year-old heart by interviewing all those who helped it resume its beat inside Max’s nine-year-old body – parents, siblings, surgeons, nurses, paramedics, bystanders, organ donation teams, psychologists and light aircraft pilots. The grace, courage and resilience of Max and Keira’s families have moved me beyond belief – it’s been a privilege to come to know them and tell their story.”