Electric Monkey, the award-winning young adult imprint of Farshore, has acquired a three-book high fantasy YA series from New York Times bestselling author Sarah Underwood. Sarah Levison, Editorial Director at Electric Monkey, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Catherine Cho at Paper Literary, in a significant deal. North American rights were acquired by Kristin Rens at HarperCollins US.
The trilogy combines vibrant and original world-building with every beloved YA trope readers could wish for: reluctant heroes, found family, deadly side quests, first love and a delicious enemies-to-lovers romance — all handled with the warmth and lightness of touch that has made Underwood a standout voice in the YA space. Pitched as The Cruel Prince meets Twin Crowns (with a touch of My Lady Jane!), this new series promises to be a major new chapter in Underwood’s authorial career.
The first book in the series, The Changeling Rule, will publish in May 2027, with the next two books in the series each set to publish a year apart. Set in the kingdom of Ironhold, The Changeling Rule follows two young women whose lives collide at a magical market: fifteen-year-old Claris, heir to a throne ruled by a father who despises magic, and seventeen-year-old Sparrow, a shapeshifting changeling on a desperate mission to free her imprisoned mother from the Ironhold dungeons. When the two strike a daring deal to swap places, both find themselves drawn into something far greater than their own missions – a brewing war between Ironblooded humans and the magical Fair Folk, with the future of all at stake.
Sarah Levison, Editorial Director at Electric Monkey, said: “I am so thrilled to bring more books from the bestselling Sarah Underwood to the Electric Monkey list. Sarah is truly a standout voice in the YA space and watching her pivot her extraordinary talents from standalone novels inspired by Greek mythology to this delightful high fantasy trilogy has been an absolute joy. Sarah has crafted a fantasy world so richly imagined and meticulously constructed that readers will never want to leave it once they enter in Spring 2027!”
Sarah Underwood said “Publishing with Electric Monkey is never anything but a joy and I’m thrilled to be working on three more books – at least! – with them. I’ve been writing The Changeling Rule for more than six years; it has grown from a tiny seed (what if someone really did trade their kingdom for a horse?) into a world full of magic, lies, bargains and secrets, heartless soldiers, pitiless kings, and a pair of protagonists I absolutely adore. After so long in my head, I am so excited to share this world and its inhabitants with readers across the world.”
Sarah Underwood is the author of two critically acclaimed standalone YA novels: Lies We Sing to the Sea, a New York Times bestseller described by The Observer as “a lavish epic of power, vengeance, love and fate” and selected as their YA Book of the Month, and Gentlest of Wild Things, named one of Cosmopolitan’s Best New Books of August 2024. Underwood is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford, where she studies healthcare data science.
The Changeling Rule will publish in paperback in the UK in May 2027.