Masson joins MidnightSun with spec-fic YA novel

MidnightSun Publishing has acquired world rights to Sophie Masson’s YA speculative fiction novel The Ghost Squad.

Set in ‘an alternative yet jarringly familiar reality’, The Ghost Squad follows 16-year-old Polly after her mother, a respected homicide detective, goes missing and she is subsequently catapulted into a very different world.

MidnightSun director Anna Solding called The Ghost Squad ‘an exciting hybrid narrative that blends realism with the disorienting atmosphere of speculative fiction, mixing elements of detective fiction and ghost stories’, adding that she is ‘very excited to have Sophie Masson join the MidnightSun family with this gem of a novel’.

‘With a highly original plot premise, vivid characters, intriguing world-building, and twists and turns, The Ghost Squad is a novel that will keep readers guessing—and keep them awake at night!’ said Solding.

Masson said: ‘The Ghost Squad is a novel which isn’t easily categorised. It takes risks with an unsettling theme and genre-bending narrative yet is also immediately immersive: a book close to my heart … I’m so thrilled that is has been acquired by MidnightSun Publishing because I know that here, in a publishing house which is open to the bold and the unusual story but which also never forgets the reader, my novel has found the perfect home.’

Masson is founder and publisher at NSW-based children’s publisher Christmas Press, and the author of more than 60 novels, mostly for young adults and children. Earlier this year she was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her ‘significant service to literature’ as an author and publisher, and through her roles with industry organisations including the New England Writers Centre and the Small Press Network.

The Ghost Squad is scheduled for release in February 2021.

Category: Junior Local news Rights and acquisitions