Hachette acquires Sunday’s “Kill to Love”
Hachette Australia has acquired world rights to the novel Kill to Love by Penny Sunday after a 2-book auction with 5 bidders, in agent Chloe Berry’s first print deal since launching the Berry Agency.
Kill to Love is described as a “dark rom-com” that is “sharp, absurd, and unapologetically bold”. It “blends high-concept dystopia with a twisted soulmate romance and satirical humour,” said Berry, “perfect for fans of Butcher & Blackbird and/or readers who like their romance a little unhinged.”
Sunday (a pen name) is an Australian author “obsessed with writing fun romance stories,” said Berry. “When reading she loves dog-earing pages (and loves her actual dog), is seriously into peanut sauce, tiramisu, and folding laundry, and regularly stocks her go-bag for any possible impending apocalypse.”
Sunday joked that she wrote Kill to Love under a pen name because “[a]fter what I had to research for this book, the government is probably watching me.”
Acquiring publisher Sophie Hamley said, “As soon as I started reading Kill to Love, I realised it was going to be unlike anything I’d ever read, in the best possible way, and that the author was hugely talented. This novel is funny, sexy and gloriously unhinged, and I know readers will love it as much as I do, because it’s highly lovable.”
Berry signed an agreement with Sunday last year, after launching the Berry Agency, when the author was already in the process of self-publishing Kill to Love. The self-published edition landed high on the Amazon charts, Berry said.
“From there, I pitched it out with its significant backing and already glued-on readers who were raving about it all over social media and Goodreads. This, I recognise, is an untraditional path to follow as an agent, but my goal has always been to shake things up [and] use my own knowledge to help authors down the pipeline to publishing.”
Hachette has a tentative release date of mid-2026 for Kill to Love, with book 2 expected in early 2027.
Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions
