Guppy Books acquires Kenneth Oppel's 'explosive' speculative YA thriller

Oxford-based indie Guppy Books has snapped up the rights to a speculative YA thriller, "an explosive story of survival, teenage passions and an invisible enemy", from bestselling author Kenneth Oppel.

Publisher Bella Pearson bought UK and Commonwealth rights for Oppel’s Best of All Worlds from Alessandra Birch at Writers House UK, on behalf of Birch’s US colleague Steven Malk. The book will be Guppy’s superlead for 2025, publishing simultaneously in June next year with Scholastic US and Penguin Random House in Oppel’s native Canada. 

Guppy called Best of all Worlds Oppel’s "most challenging and provocative novel to date". It begins on what should be a relaxing weekend away for Xavier and his family that "becomes the stuff of nightmares" as they wake to discover themselves trapped inside a dome with no escape, no sign of captors, and "just one other family whose political and moral compasses are very different".

Pearson said: "Best of All Worlds is, simply put, one of the most thrilling and page-turning novels I have read in a long time; the confines of this small intense world creates unbearable tension between two very different families, and our teen hero must make some impossible choices."

Vancouver-based Oppel is a bestseller in the US and Canada, with his biggest international hit the Silverwing series, later made into an animated TV show. His writing career famously started while he was still in school and a family friend who knew Roald Dahl sent the Matilda creator a manuscript Oppel had just completed. Dahl passed the manuscript to his agent, who duly took Oppel on. 

Guppy, which most recently published Oppel’s 2022 title, Ghostlight, said Best of All Worlds’ release will be accompanied by a "high-profile, year-long" PR and marketing campaign, and an Oppel tour in 2026 to accompany the paperback.