Wakefield acquires Lenoir-Jourdan’s “Saltblood”

Wakefield Press has acquired ANZ rights to the debut YA novel Saltblood by Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, via Martin Shaw of Shaw Literary.

Described by the publisher as “Puberty Blues meets Looking for Alibrandi, reimagined for a contemporary audience”, Saltblood is set in a coastal town “split by postcode and privilege” and features 16-year-old protagonist Sheri Bung, “checkout chick, westie, and outsider to the local surf elite”.

When her mother dies suddenly, Sheri “uncovers a legacy of loss, a stillborn brother, and a buried passion for surfing”.

Wakefield head of YA Maddy Sexton praised Lenoir-Jourdan’s “immersive writing style and uncanny knack for capturing the teen voice” and said of the book’s protagonist: “Sheri is everything I love in a character–she’s compulsively readable, deeply human, and hiding a heart of gold under her spiky demeanour.”

A freelance writer, Lenoir-Jourdan is a PhD student under the supervision of Felicity Castagna and Rachel Morley at Western Sydney University, and a casual academic at Macquarie and Western Sydney Universities. She also studied at UTS under author Andrew Pippos whom she credits with helping her to find her voice.

Lenoir-Jourdan said, “Puberty Blues got under my salt-crusted skin early and made itself comfortable. I briefly picked up a board as a teenager, then found surfing again at the age of 39 […] I moved my office from a Hyde Park view – ‘westie’, according to the warped cartography of Northern Beaches’ locals – to Manly on the insular peninsula.

“That surf rebirth became the seed of Saltblood, a YA novel that explores the complexification of the female surf protagonist. Sheri has escaped the Chiko Roll queue, that deep-fried holding pen of Australian surf mythology, and paddled into the break, where belonging is hard-won, and seldom granted without a little blood in the water.”

Wakefield Press plans to publish Saltblood in March 2027.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions