Coronet snaps up companion novel to Lo's National Book Award winner

Coronet has snapped up a companion novel to Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Coronet), which won the 2021 National Book Award. 

Melissa Cox, editorial director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, for A Scatter of Light from Vanessa Kerr at Abner Stein, on behalf of Michael Bourret and Lauren Abramo at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. The book will be published simultaneously in the US by Dutton this autumn. 

Set in 2013 after the first of the Supreme Court decisions that brought marriage equality to the US, A Scatter of Light tells the story of Aria Tang West, whose story of desire and self-discovery is subtly entwined with a note of closure for Lily and Kath from Telegraph Club. 

Cox said: “Publishing Malinda Lo has been one of the biggest privileges of my career to date. I knew Telegraph Club was special when I read it, but I didn’t wholly anticipate the rapturous reception the book would have from UK readers. We felt immense pride when the book won the prestigious National Book Award and still more joy when we found out A Scatter of Light was so soon to follow – I’m glad fans don’t have too long to wait to share that joy when we publish this coming autumn.” 

Lo added: “I was absolutely thrilled when Melissa Cox acquired Last Night at the Telegraph Club in the UK, and I’m so happy that she’ll be publishing A Scatter of Light, too! The funny thing is, I wrote the first draft of A Scatter of Light years before Last Night at the Telegraph Club, and it was only writing Telegraph Club that made me realize the two books are connected. They’re quite different, but I hope Telegraph Club readers will enjoy finding out a little bit more while they get to know A Scatter of Light’s Aria on her own coming-of-age journey.”