Press release

HARPERCOLLINS ACQUIRES BRIAN FRANCIS’S YA DEBUT, BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Toronto; December 4, 2018)

Suzanne Sutherland, Children’s Editor at HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, has acquired Canada English rights to Canada Reads finalist Brian Francis’s YA debut, Break in Case of Emergency, to be published in fall 2019. Sutherland said of the acquisition, “This is exactly the kind of project that makes me grateful to do the work I do. Brian’s writing shows his tremendous respect and love for his characters—bringing a careful touch to complex issues, and humour to even the darkest situations.”

A timeless family saga with Francis’s signature twist of wit and tenderness, Break in Case of Emergency follows fifteen-year-old Toby Goodman, whose plans to escape her small farming town are thrown off by the sudden return of her absentee father, a world-renowned female impersonator on the downswing of fame. “I’m very excited to share this story with younger readers,” Francis said. “Break in Case of Emergency is a novel about resilience, celebrating difference and the importance of good cheekbones.”

Brian Francis’s book deal was brokered by Dean Cooke, Proprietor and Literary Agent at CookeMcDermid Agency Inc.

Brian Francis is the author of two previous novels. His most recent, Natural Order, was selected by the Toronto Star, Kobo and the Georgia Straight as a Best Book of 2011. His first novel, Fruit, was a 2009 Canada Reads finalist and was selected as one of 100 Novels That Make You Proud to Be Canadian by CBC Books. He writes a monthly advice column, “Ask the Agony Editor,” for Quill & Quire magazine and is a regular contributor to CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter. His most recent work, a performance piece titled Box 4901, debuted at the 2018 SummerWorks Performance Festival.

HarperCollins in Canada:

Known worldwide for the quality of its list, HarperCollinsCanada is the proud home of many bestselling authors, including Esi Edugyan, Heather O’Neill, Lawrence Hill, Kenneth Oppel, Mark Sakamoto, Emily St. John Mandel, Lindsay Mattick and Josh Greenhut, Tracey Lindberg, Tara Westover, Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor, Rachel Cusk, Anthony Horowitz, Uzma Jalaluddin, Kim Fu, Carrianne Leung, Ellen Keith, Kim Smith, Jael Richardson, Emma Donoghue, Kit Pearson, Paul Covello, Dennis Lee, and Thomas King, among many more found at harpercollins.ca.

HarperCollins Publishers is the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in 18 countries. With 200 years of history and more than 120 branded imprints around the world, HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books every year in 17 languages and has a print and digital catalogue of more than 200,000 titles. Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the RBC Taylor Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, and the Man Booker Prize. HarperCollins, headquartered in New York, is a subsidiary of News Corp (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) and can be visited online at corporate.HC.com.

Date Posted

December 4, 2018

Author

Lauren Morocco

Subject

HARPERCOLLINS ACQUIRES BRIAN FRANCIS’S YA DEBUT, BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY