PRH acquires ‘subversive’ boarding school YA debut

Penguin Random House Australia has acquired the rights to Margot McGovern’s contemporary YA debut Neverland.

Random House Young Readers publisher Zoe Walton acquired ANZ rights and English-language rights in Asia via Jacinta di Mase Management agent Danielle Binks.

Neverland tells the story of 17-year-old Kit Learmonth and is set in a boarding school. In a post on her personal blog Lectito, McGovern says the book was inspired by ‘the stories [she] loved as a kid: Peter Pan, Treasure Island, The Famous Five’, and is ‘filled with late night adventures, sailing, secrets, smuggling and a little forbidden romance’.

‘It’s a subversive twist on the boarding school sub-genre of YA,’ Binks told Books+Publishing. ‘It has real commercial fiction potential as a tough and magical story that I think teen readers will fall head-over-heels for!’

Neverland will be published in April 2018.

Category: Junior Local news Rights and acquisitions