Hodder falls for two new ‘laugh-out-loud’ romantic comedies from Birchall

Hodder & Stoughton has snapped up rights to two new romantic comedies from Katy Birchall, author of The Secret Bridesmaid, The Wedding Season (both Hodder) and several young adult and middle-grade novels.

Publisher Kimberley Atkins signed world English-language rights, including audio, from Lauren Gardner at Bell Lomax Moreton, with the first, The Last Word, scheduled for publication in summer 2023. 

Birchall’s current US publisher, Sarah Cantin at St Martin’s Press, acquired US rights to The Last Word from Hodder & Stoughton. It will publish in trade paperback there in 2023. 

The book tells the story of Harper Jenkins, whose dream job at a glossy magazine starts to unravel when her work nemesis is hired to work alongside her as the new features editor. 

Atkins said: “It’s a total joy to publish Katy’s adult novels at Hodder & Stoughton – she is a dream author and her writing sparkles from first to last page. The Last Word delivers a fresh spin on the enemies-to-lovers trope, set in the messy world of magazine publishing and is ambitious, romantic and laugh-out-loud funny. Working with Katy (and Sarah) on her wonderful novels is always such a delight and this is her very best book yet – I can’t wait to get it into readers’ hands.”  

Birchall said: “I couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity to continue working with the fabulous teams at Hodder & Stoughton and St Martin’s Press – my UK and US editors, Kim and Sarah, have been my biggest supporters right from the beginning of my journey into commercial fiction and I feel so unbelievably lucky that I get to work alongside such talented and passionate people and have the chance to keep writing stories that I hope will make readers smile and laugh along the way.”