Viking signs WriteNow mentee Emma Morgan's 'assured' debut

Viking has acquired a "moving and exquisitely funny" debut novel by Emma Morgan, who was part of the inaugural PRH WriteNow mentoring programme.

A Love Story for Bewildered Girls is about love, sex and heartbreak and tells the story of three young women in Leeds who fall in love for the first time.

Isabel Wall, assistant editor at Viking, bought world rights from Anna Power at Johnson & Alcock.

Morgan - born in Guernsey, now based in Liverpool - was part of the first intake of mentees on the PRH WriteNow scheme which aims to seek out, mentor and publish new writers from communities under-represented on the nation’s bookshelves. As well as teaching English as a foreign langauage in Spain, she has also previously worked as a support worker and for BBC local radio.

"Getting published is one of the most thrilling things that has ever happened to me and most of my family cried on the day it was acquired," she said. "I'm delighted to be working with Isabel and Anna on getting A Love Story for Bewildered Girls out into the world."

Wall said: "I couldn’t be happier to be publishing this wonderfully assured debut about female friendship and first love in all its guises."

A Love Story for Bewildered Girls will be published by Viking in February 2019.