Atom smashes three-way auction to win BookTok star Laura Nowlin's time-slip mystery

Little, Brown imprint Atom won Laura Nowlin’s Mystery Mary and the Undertaker’s Apprentice in a three-way auction. 

Atom editorial director Olivia Hutchings bought UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Australia, New Zealand and Canada) at auction, from Ali McDonald at 5 Otter Literary. Publication is scheduled for 2026. Other international rights include a six-figure deal in Australia and a pre-empt in Italy.

American Young Adult BookTok star Nowlin had previously been published in the UK by Sourcebooks Fire, with her If Only I Had Told Her becoming the US-headquartered publisher’s first UK children’s number one in February this year. Nowlin’s If He Had Been with Me has been available in the UK since 2019 (though published in the US six years previously); it has sold nearly 125,000 print copies through Nielsen BookScan UK, 95% of which have come since the title was embraced on BookTok in 2023.   

Nowlin’s new novel is a YA "crossover time-slip murder mystery" pitched as "Outlander" meets A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, in which a contemporary young woman is transported back to Victorian-era New York. When a trail of dead bodies leads to her door, she teams up with a handsome undertaker’s apprentice and a local suffragist to expose the killer, all while hiding the secret of her identity.

Hutchings said: "I’ve admired Laura Nowlin’s writing for years, and it is a dream come true to be working with her on her new novel. With a brilliant combination of mystery, murder and romance, Laura is at the height of her considerable powers in Mystery Mary and the Undertaker’s Apprentice."