Archives par étiquette : Writers House

MOSTLY AWFUL GROWNUPS de River Clegg & Lúthien Leerghast

Sold in a heated US auction, the first book in this debut middle-grade series is as hilarious, fast-paced and mysterious as it is full of heart. Featuring wonderful black and white illustrations by Lúthien Leerghast, this title is perfect for fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

MOSTLY AWFUL GROWNUPS
by River Clegg
illustrated by Lúthien Leerghast
Stonefruit Studio/Sourcebooks, March 2027
(via Writers House)

Twin siblings Cole and Willow are smart, resourceful, brave, and kind. But they are not safe. From the moment they return home to find their parents mysteriously missing, they are whisked into a whirlwind of narrow escapes and daring rescues, forced to flee from a cadre of menacing (and mostly awful) grownups intent on pursuing them.

As sensitive, artistic Cole and bold, clever Willow fight to figure out who they can trust and struggle to uncover secrets their parents have buried for years, they are drawn ever deeper into the orbit of a shadowy organization called the Keepers. The twins must face down uncountable obstacles in their journey—a woefully incompetent newspaper, adults who cannot identify alpacas, a vastly unhelpful desk clerk, a malicious (and bored) piranha named Reginald, and, worst of all, the looming realization that they may never have known their parents at all.

Amidst the clever plot twists and whimsical locales, it’s the tender, realistic relationship between the twins that occupies the heart of this novel. Cole and Willow love each other as only siblings can—fiercely, argumentatively, and unconditionally—and their bond breathes life into their wild and wonderful series of escapades. But perhaps even more vital is the novel’s moving and honest portrayal of the unavoidable pitfalls of growing up. As Clegg’s narrator informs his readers, “Stories are to help us make sense of our lives.” And (MOSTLY) AWFUL GROWNUPS provides empathy and clarity to young readers struggling to comprehend, perhaps for the first time, that grownups aren’t infallible, and parents can’t always be there. It’s a novel that stages an inevitable, powerful wrestling with maturation within the realm of the fantastic, rendering it at once an unmistakably timely and fresh story with the trappings of a classic.

River Clegg is a Brooklyn-based copywriter, creative director, and TV writer. His work has frequently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and in The New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” section.

THE SECOND GREATEST THIEF de Christine Cohen

This steampunk fantasy will have you on the edge of your seat as a young and clever thief must pull off a major heist with a life changing prize. This debut has it all—adrenaline-spiking action, heartwarming family dynamics, and a colourful cast of characters impossible not to love!

THE SECOND GREATEST THIEF
by Christine Cohen
Viking, Spring 2027
(via Writers House)

Twelve-year-old Lira Angleson has only one goal: to become a Master Thief. If she’s successful, she’ll be the youngest in New York City’s Thieves Guild to accomplish it, and she won’t ever have to worry about being hungry again. But when her final heist to earn the title goes wrong, she’s about to lose everything she’s worked so hard for. Desperate, she strikes a devilish deal with the Guild’s sinister Grandmaster: If she can complete an upcoming heist so dangerous that most thieves aren’t willing to try, he will grant her the coveted title. 

There’s just one catch. Lira’s brother, William, famously known as the city’s greatest thief, has his own reasons for needing to win the prize. Can Lira outsmart her brother to snatch it first, or will she forever be the city’s second greatest thief?

 Christine Cohen was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. After writing some really terrible Lord of the Rings fanfiction as a teenager, she started creating her own fictional worlds after college, and she hasn’t stopped since. The Second Greatest Thief is her debut middle-grade novel.

THIS IS AN ACTUAL TRAGEDY de Natalie Rose Richardson

A mesmerizing debut that combines the transformative friendships of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, the suspense of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, and the varying vocal registers of Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch.

THIS IS AN ACTUAL TRAGEDY
by Natalie Rose Richardson
Knopf, May 2027
(via Writers House)

Two weeks before freshman orientation, four soon-to-be (unlikely) friends arrive at the University of Chicago as part of its token Scholars of Color (SOC) program: there’s Darwin, an insecure physics geek on a quest to lose his virginity; Nat, an elusive aspiring writer who starts secretly dating her much older mentor; Jordan, the would-be campus all-star who’s too stuck in his head to fulfill his potential, and Stephanie, the undisputed hottest girl on campus, who’s carrying a shocking secret.

Four years later, they combine their strengths to stage a protest as part of Scav – a notorious campus secret society that organizes a yearly competition, one that often spawns dark, borderline illegal situations that the school pays good money to cover up. This year’s prompt: to dramatically reenact “an actual tragedy.” Fifty-five students from SOC don shabby costumes and pitch tents in a Chicago park that, only days prior, was purged of real asylum seekers. But when the cops arrive at the scene, performance becomes reality when tragedy strikes.

Told in four parts, the novel dives into the life of each irresistibly compelling protagonist during one year of college. Their relationships to each other and themselves are tested as they each weather their own individual tragedies. It’s these friends’ complicated ties and devotion to each other that lead them to organize the asylum seeker reenactment—the consequences of which will mark the survivors forever.

With an irreverent, razor-sharp voice that dips into the serious, THIS IS AN ACTUAL TRAGEDY probes loneliness and belonging, race, class, sex, friendship, and the absurdities of American higher education, and marks the arrival of a bril­liant young talent.

Natalie Rose Richardson is a writer from Oak Park, Illinois with degrees from the University of Chicago (BA), Northwestern University (MA & MFA in Poetry), and the NYU Creative Writing Program (MFA in Fiction). The manuscript was closely advised by Jonathan Safran Foer, who writes: “Natalie Rose Richardson arrives with a vibrant, irreverent, singular voice. THIS IS AN ACTUAL TRAGEDY is an actual joy.” Her work has appeared in Narrative, Orion Magazine, Poetry Magazine, and more.

FOR EVERY PERSON YOU KILL de Sahar Delijani

The highly anticipated follow-up to Sahar Delijani’s internationally bestselling debut, Children of the Jacaranda Tree, which was inspired by her parents’ political persecution and subsequent imprisonment in post-revolutionary Iran. Now, in her sophomore novel, FOR EVERY PERSON YOU KILL, Sahar turns her attention to life after prison, examining the intergenerational legacy of trauma born of incarceration.

FOR EVERY PERSON YOU KILL
by Sahar Delijani
Melville House, April 2027
(via Writers House)

Set between the violent aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution and the recent Woman Life Freedom uprising in 2022, this novel also explores both the power and the limits of storytelling to grapple with that trauma: what happens when we metabolize our personal suffering through writing? What does it mean when that intimate story becomes part of a larger collective memory? And does the act of telling that story hold the power to stop history from repeating itself?

Tehran, 1980s. The daughter of political dissidents, Neda is born inside the walls of the notorious Evin Prison. She doesn’t meet her parents again until they are released when she is four years old, but their estrangement doesn’t end with their long-awaited embrace. Neda feels shy and awkward around Azar and Ismael, who in turn wrestle with how to be parents as they process the brutality they have been subjected to and struggle to rebuild their shat­tered lives…

Manhattan, 2022. Neda, now in her forties, and on her way to a reading for her second novel, grapples with the weight of her literary success. As a renewed wave of violent crackdowns on protesters fighting the same regime that once persecuted her family takes hold of the country of her birth, Neda struggles to prepare herself mentally and emotionally to face an audience. She is so weary of walking the tightrope between public and private, spokes­woman and survivor, and increasingly aware that she has made a career of writing about the trauma of others without fully examining her own…

As warm-blooded and intimate as it is politically engaged, FOR EVERY PERSON YOU KILL is a work of autobio­graphical literary fiction for readers of Homeland Elegies and In the Shadow of the Banyan. It joins the canon of lit­erature about the act of writing literature, alongside such works as the Neapolitan Novels and The Book of Goose.

Sahar Delijani is the author of Children of the Jacaranda Tree an autobiographical novel which has been trans­lated into 30 languages and published in more than 75 countries. It was a Women’s National Book Association’s Great Group selection, an Indie Next Pick, a CBS Local Best Book Club Pick, a finalist for Italy’s Elle Gran Premio, one of Vogue India’s Top 10 Big Reads, and a candidate for France’s Prix des Lecteurs Sélection by Le Livre de Poche. Born in Iran in 1983, she grew up in California, lived for many years in Italy, and currently resides in New York City.

IMMORTAL ROSE d’Alexandra Bracken

From Alexandra Bracken, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lore comes a stunningly original adult fantasy. Set in a sumptuous world ruled by magical perfume, this achingly romantic, slow-burn love story will shatter your heart and leave you breathless.

IMMORTAL ROSE
by Alexandra Bracken
Avon, August 2026
(via Writers House)

Members of the ancient Rosebourne family have a strange gift born of a fairy ancestor: the ability to infuse fragrance with magic capable of manipulating mind, body, and emotion.

When a shocking murder leaves the kingdom of Albion vulnerable to a coup, royal spymaster Hugh Thornton seeks the one person who can help: Viola Lockwood, the last living Rosebourne and secret heir to a fraught legacy.

Livid at the silver-eyed aristocrat who had her thrown in jail to force her compliance, Viola nevertheless comes to an agreement with him. In exchange for crafting Immortal Rose, the singular perfume capable of saving Albion, illegitimate Viola can seize the life–and fortune–that should have been hers.

As Hugh and Viola race to find the perfume’s lost fairy ingredient, hidden deep in Albion’s dark underbelly, neither can deny the scorching attraction building between them–especially as the attempts on Viola’s life grow increasingly brazen.

But a terrible truth lurks in the heart notes of their kingdom–and while every bargain has a cost, Immortal Rose may demand more than Hugh and Viola can ever pay.

Alexandra Bracken was born in Phoenix, Arizona. The daughter of a Star Wars collector, she grew up going to an endless string of Star Wars conventions and toy fairs, which helped spark her imagination and a deep love of reading. After graduating high school, she attended The College of William & Mary in Virginia, where she double majored in English and History. She sold her first book, Brightly Woven, as a senior in college, and later moved to New York City to work in children’s book publishing, first as an editorial assistant, then in marketing. After six years, she took the plunge and decided to write full time. She now lives in Arizona with her tiny pup, Tennyson, in a house that’s constantly overflowing with books. Alex is a #1 New York Times, USA TODAY, and internationally bestselling author. Her work has been adapted for feature film and is available across the world in over 20 languages.