Scribner lands Kemp's 'audacious' debut in 24-hour pre-empt

Scribner has landed an "audacious" debut by Sophie Frances Kemp in a 24-hour pre-empt.

Publishing director Sophie Missing acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Paradise Logic from Jim Rutman at Sterling Lord Literistic in a joint acquisition with senior editor Olivia Taylor Smith at Simon & Schuster US. The book will be published in spring 2025.

Described as "surreal and brilliantly funny", the synopsis says: "Meet Reality Kahn, a dangerously hopeful 23-year-old actress for local waterpark commercials, zine maker and aspiring notary who is on an epic quest to be the greatest girlfriend of all time. Guided by ladies’ magazine Girlfriend Weekly and experimental psychopharmaceuticals, Reality sets out to perform the rituals of dating and femininity in increasingly disturbing ways. Bad things keep happening to Reality on her quest, but she doesn’t care: her eyes are on the prize, she wants to be the perfect girlfriend."

Missing said: "Paradise Logic is laugh-out-loud funny, outrageously smart and slightly bonkers. Sophie Frances Kemp is a serious talent and I’m so happy to be publishing her genre-disrupting debut in the UK and partnering with Olivia Taylor Smith."

Kemp is a graduate of Columbia’s MFA in fiction and now teaches in the undergraduate creative writing program. She added: "I’m so very excited that my weird little novel has found such a wonderful and supportive home and I can’t wait to help Scribner UK launch this book. It means the world to me!"