Bluebird scoops guide to friendship from psychologist Franco

Bluebird has scooped Platonic: How Understanding Your Attachment Style Can Help You Make and Keep Friends by psychologist Dr Marisa G Franco. 

Publisher Carole Tonkinson acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Ben Fowler at Abner Stein on behalf of Todd Schuster and Justin Brouckaert of Aevitas Creative Management. The guide will be published in September 2022. 

"We are thrilled to be publishing this original and deeply necessary book. We have all seen over the past few years how essential friendship is to our wellbeing, and yet advice on how to make friends as an adult is hard to come by," Tonkinson said. "Platonic is the practical, compassionate guide so many will be looking for to help them find - and keep - those precious connections.”

Platonic is billed as a "practical, groundbreaking" book which looks at friendship through attachment theory, an approach typically used to examine romantic relationships. In this "expertly researched and heartfelt" guide, Franco takes readers through a re-examination of friendships and how our assumptions about friendships happening organically are wrong - making friends is less about who you are and more about how you treat people. 

The publisher wrote: "Platonic provides a data-driven blueprint for finding friends by interspersing compelling and relevant research with captivating real life stories and case studies. But this groundbreaking book will not only provide ‘hot tips’ for making friends; it will also set out how our underlying psychology sabotages or supports our ability to connect." 

Franco commented: "At a time when loneliness has soared, many of us have realised how empty life is without connection. Yet, we just don’t know how to find the friends we seek. I hope Platonic will bring us all the soul-affirming, rich, fulfilling friendships we all deeply crave. I feel immensely thankful to be working with Bluebird to bring Platonic to life.”