Inkyard Press, Harlequin Trade Publishing’s YA commercial fiction imprint, is launching a line of middle grade books beginning in 2022. The focus will be on action-driven novels, including humor and fantasy, with an eye toward series and brand development.
Publishing director of Inkyard Press Bess Braswell, who will be overseeing the new line, said, “We are thrilled to be expanding our program to reach more young readers. Our editors are passionate about middle grade storytelling, and much of my marketing experience has been in launching middle grade series, like Dork Diaries, Wings of Fire, and Whatever After. I can’t wait to return to this creative publishing space.”
The 2022 season will include four titles. The Not-So-Uniform Life of Holly-Mei by debut novelist Christina Matula follows Taiwanese Canadian Holly-Mei Jones as she is uprooted from her life in Toronto when her mother gets a job in Hong Kong. The Supernatural Society by Free Lunch author Rex Ogle stars a biracial Latinx boy named Will Hunter, who discovers a world of monsters and magical creatures that only he can see in his new town. The Gingerbread Witch by Alexandra Overy, author of the upcoming Inkyard novel These Feathered Flames (Apr.), centers on the daughter of the witch from “Hansel and Gretel”; after a pair of witch hunters push her mother into an oven, she must find a way to bring her back. The book kicks off a series of Brothers Grimm fairy tale retellings. And How to Heal a Gryphon by Meg Cannistra is the first in a series about an Italian girl who is torn between her passion for magically healing animals and her family’s desire for her to follow tradition.
The books will be sold by HarperCollins Children’s Books’ sales force, as with all Inkyard titles.
