London Book Fair


News TINA SMIGIELSKI


11th March 2025


Day Planner 1


Zaffre signs ‘unforgettable’ new novel from Heather Morris


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onnier Books UK imprint Zaffre has acquired Jesse’s Wish, an “unforgettable”


contemporary novel of family, love and heartbreak from the bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz Heather Morris ( 1). Sarah Benton, joint CEO at


Bonnier Books UK, bought world all-language rights to the novel directly from the author. It will be published this September, supported by a major publicity and marketing campaign, and will be simultaneously published in Australia by Bonnier Echo. The novel revolves around Jesse


and Alex; Jesse is 15 and loves her family, friends and video games – even from her hospital bed. Alex is 29, a VR game designer whose life, at times, feels quite empty. But when Jesse makes a wish for a video experience to be made from her memories, Alex is the only one who can make it come true. Their worlds collide and a beautiful and unexpected friendship blossoms that will change both their – and their families’ – lives forever. Morris said: “I’ve always been


drawn to powerful stories that find hope even in the darkest of times. [Jesse's Wish is] particularly poign- ant as it’s inspired by my time working in a busy Melbourne hospital with families going through the toughest times. It was heartbreaking to see so many young lives wrought with tragedy but among the pain there were also amazing moments of joy as families came together.” Morris has been published in Britain by Bonnier since her 2018 debut The Tattooist of Auschwitz.


15.15 Carnegie Awards Shortlist Announcement


Focus Theatre Now in its 89th year, the most venerable and arguably most influential British children’s book award returns to Olympia to reveal the 2025 shortlistees. The writing and illustration medal contenders will be named after a discussion on the Carnegie’s ongoing mission to empower the next generation through books and reading, with the panel featuring this year’s chair of judges, Ros Harding, last year’s Medal for Writing winner, Tia Fisher (below), and Erika Meza, who was shortlisted in 2024 for the Medal for Illustration.


Simon & Schuster acquires Catriona Byers’ look at the Paris morgue


TOM TIVNAN Managing Editor


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historian’s look at a 19th-century Paris morgue in which the unidentified dead were laid out for


public view has been snapped up by Simon & Schuster (S&S), followed by a flurry of multi- publisher auctions across Europe. S&S deputy publisher for non-


fiction Kris Doyle bought world rights to Catriona Byers’ ( 2) Morgue: Death, Tragedy and the Birth of True Crime in Nineteenth- century Paris from Rachel Conway at Georgina Capel Associates. The S&S rights team has reported


a subsequent international response to the book, as heated auctions in France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Spain were concluded in the run-up to London Book Fair, with “more to come”. North American rights went to S&S’s Scribner division, acquired by senior vice-president and publisher Nan Graham and executive editor Katie Raissian.


Byer s’ book focuses on 1804 onwards, when Paris’ unidentified dead were displayed at the city morgue. The bodies were laid out in the hope that one of the thousands of visitors might identify them. Morgue looks at 12 bodies and


uses them to tell a “gripping and immersive story of a city in turmoil and a society in flux”. Across four themed sections – crime, science, social history and artistic afterlives – Byers offers “a panoramic explo- ration of topics as diverse as death tourism, the sex trade, surveillance policing, the birth of forensics, the invention of photography and the rise of Gothic literature”. Byers hails from Fife, Scotland,


and now lives in Paris. She recently completed her PhD at King’s College London on the Paris and New York City morgues, alongside research projects relating to the “history of crime-scene photogra- phy, haunted archives and the redevelopment of American pauper cemeteries”. Byers was also shortlisted for the BBC’s New Generation Thinker 2024.


Picador nabs poet Stephanie Sy-Quia's debut novel


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icador publishing director Anne Meadows has triumphed in a five- way auction for prize- winning poet Stephanie


Sy-Quia’s ( 3) debut novel, a tale of “forbidden love and ardent faith” that is a fictionalised reimagining of the story of her grandparents. Meadows acquired world English rights to A Private Man from Matthew Marland at RCW Literary Agency for publication in spring 2026. Elisabeth Schmitz at


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Grove Atlantic acquired North American rights from Pan Macmillan’s Jon Mitchell. Meanwhile, German rights were sold by Sam Coates at RCW to Suhrkamp in a pre-empt. The book is set in the 1960s


and follows Catholic priest David, who is “handsome, charis- matic and sworn to celibacy”. Everything changes when David meets Margaret: they have an instant and “soul-deep” attraction and together they set out to


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