Nosy Crow lands Longmuir's 'gripping' debut

Nosy Crow has landed Looking for Emily, a middle-grade adventure from debut author Fiona Longmuir.

Described as a "hugely gripping mystery adventure", the novel centres on a child who discovers a secret museum in her new home town. The synopsis explains: "When 12-year-old Lily moves to the sleepy seaside town of Edge, she is sure that nothing exciting is ever going to happen to her again. But when she stumbles on a secret museum hidden in the middle of town, she realises that there might be more to her new home than meets the eye.

"The Museum of Emily is filled with the belongings of one seemingly ordinary little girl, a little girl who, many years ago, disappeared from the town without a trace. With the help of her new friends Sam and Jay, Lily is determined to solve the mystery and find out who Emily was, why she disappeared and who has created the strange, hidden museum."

Tom Bonnick, senior commissioning editor, bought world rights from Julia Silk at Charlie Campbell Literary Agents. The book will publish in January 2022.

He said: “I read a one-sentence pitch for Looking for Emily during a Twitter pitching event, and was immediately and completely hooked by the premise – a hidden museum dedicated to a single, mysterious person. Once I had the full manuscript in my hands, I just couldn’t put it down — it’s a truly original story, with fantastic twists, a brilliant trio of protagonists, and a villain worthy of Cape Fear’s Max Cady. And it’s a great privilege to be working with Fiona on her debut novel – she is a brilliant new talent to look out for!”

Longmuir commented: “I've been telling stories my whole life and I could not be more excited to be telling this one with Nosy Crow. This book contains all of my favourite things: a mystery, the seaside, copious amounts of chips, an unreasonably large library. It has my whole heart and it's been such a total joy to work on it with Nosy Crow, who not only accepted but delighted in all its oddities. I've been dreaming of this since I was a little kid and now that it's here, it's everything I hoped it would be.”