F&W Media announces the launch of Merit Press
Riveting and relevant real-world novels for young adults, headed by New York Times bestseller Jacquelyn Mitchard.
Under the guidance of Jacquelyn Mitchard, the Merit Press imprint will explore the honest inner workings of today’s young adults—their issues, their nobility, their flaws—in stories that crackle with tension, drama, and compelling issues of teen life.
At the crest of the new wave of YA fiction—dramatic realism and mystery for the emerging audience of teen and adult readers—Merit Press will publish the next Carrie, the next National Velvet, the next The Outsiders, the next Tuck Everlasting, books destined to become the classics of a new generation.
Plots will twist and turn with extraordinary, heartbreaking, and unthinkable challenges, from shattered friendships and searing secrets to life-and-death danger. Those books are out there, waiting to be plucked from the tree of stories. Already, we have discovered some of them.
The name Merit Press says it all.
The first five books are top-notch, expertly written stories, skillfully plotted and daring. They range from Daphne Benedis-Grab’s The Girl in the Wall, which tells the nail-biting story of an entire posh party of super-rich teens taken hostage in a desperate kidnap plot; to Tempestuous and Exposure, Kim Askew and Amy Helmes’s wild and literate send-ups of the Bard; to a “boy book” girls will love, Steven Parlato’s wrenching tale of a father’s suicide, The Namesake; and Laurie Plissner’s luminous debut, Louder Than Words, that tells of a girl who can speak only through a computer voice box, until she meets a boy who literally can read her mind.
Merit Press books will be unexpected. They will surprise and challenge their readers, and yet keep them up all night flipping the pages. In short, they’ll offer readers everything—an emotional journey of adventure and love, delight and dread, peopled with authentic characters that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Simon Pulse acquires popular teen romances
Romance is a perennial favorite for teens and adults alike. With the current adult market leaning heavily toward sensual romance, Simon Pulse has been talking about the best way to accomplish this for the mature teen market. Enter the fabulous self-published author Abbi Glines! Not only has she found a way to publish sensual romance for a younger market, but she amassed a considerable fanbase as well. Simon Pulse acquired Abbi’s The Vincent Boys and its sequel, The Vincent Brothers. The Vincent Boys features Ashton Gray, and cousins Sawyer and Beau Vincent. Ashton and Sawyer have been together forever--she’s the preacher’s daughter; he’s the town’s Golden Boy. But Ashton can’t deny her attraction to bad-boy Beau. He’s the hottest guy she’s ever seen, dangerous in ways that she’s only dreamed about, and the one guy she should probably stay away from…but can’t. The Vincent Boys was published on October 30 and The Vincent Brothers will be published on December 18; both are available currently in e-book format from Simon Pulse. This is Simon Pulse’s first foray into acquiring self-published books, and we’re thrilled to have on our list not only two compulsively readable romance novels, but a savvy and effective self-promoter as well.
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