Bestselling Author Melissa Marr Announces New YA Trilogy With HarperCollins

NEW YORK, July 22 /PRNewswire/ -- HarperCollins Publishers announced they will publish a new three-book series with Melissa Marr, author of the New York Times bestselling Wicked Lovely series.  Marr's new trilogy revolves around a girl assassin, a demon with a soul, and a world where myth and science meet.  The first book is tentatively scheduled for a fall 2013 release.  World Rights were acquired from Marr's agent, Merrilee Heifetz of Writer's House, by Anne Hoppe, the editor of the Wicked Lovely series.

Melissa Marr burst onto the Young Adult literature scene in June 2007.  Her debut novel, WICKED LOVELY, instantly became a New York Times bestseller, as well as a Los Angeles Times bestseller, and Marr was selected as a Publishers Weekly Flying Starts author.  WICKED LOVELY also won the Romance Writers of America RITA award for Young Adult books and was named a finalist for Borders Original Voices award.  Each of her subsequent novels has been a New York Times bestseller, and the Wicked Lovely series concludes in February 2011 with DARKEST MERCY, the fifth and final installment.

Marr has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach her fans in new ways and to recruit new readers.  This spring, Harper published "Stopping Time," a digital-born short story set in the world of Wicked Lovely, in two parts.  Each half of the story was downloaded more than 45,000 times.  Additionally, a limited-time free e-book of Wicked Lovely was downloaded more than 60,000 times.  All three digital products sat at the top of Amazon's Kindle Bestseller list for several weeks. 

"It's hard to believe that Melissa Marr made her publishing debut just three short years ago," says Susan Katz, President and Publisher of HarperCollins Children's Books.  "We've been consistently impressed by the tidal wave of support for her books and the innovative ways Melissa has engaged and broadened her readership, capitalizing upon her online savvy and traditional networking efforts."

Offline, Marr conceived of an author-initiated, grassroots group book tour called "Smart Chicks Kick It" which will commence in September 2010.  The tour, which involves nineteen authors from a wide array of publishers, will stop in twelve cities and includes bestselling YA writers such as Kelley Armstrong, Cassandra Clare, Alyson Noel, and Holly Black.  In April 2011, Marr will spearhead programming for the Young Adult track at the RT Booklovers Convention in Los Angeles, working with many of the biggest names in YA literature.

Fans of Wicked Lovely can also expect a forthcoming Wicked Lovely movie. In September 2009, Universal Pictures acquired screen rights to the Wicked Lovely series from Marr's agent, Merrilee Heifetz, with Sally Wilcox of CAA.  The studio bought the books to be produced by Vince Vaughn's Wild West Picture Show Productions and hired Caroline Thompson ("Edward Scissorhands") to write the screenplay. 

ABOUT HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS:

HarperCollins, one of the largest English-language publishers in the world, is a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS, NWSLV). Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups around the world including the HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children's Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada, HarperCollins Australia/New Zealand and HarperCollins India. HarperCollins is a broad-based publisher with strengths in literary and commercial fiction, business books, children's books, cookbooks, mystery, romance, reference, religious and spiritual books. With nearly 200 years of history HarperCollins has published some of the world's foremost authors and has won numerous awards including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott. Consistently at the forefront of innovation and technological advancement, HarperCollins is the first publisher to digitize its content and create a global digital warehouse to protect the rights of its authors, meet consumer demand and generate additional business opportunities. You can visit HarperCollins Publishers on the Internet at http://www.harpercollins.com.

Publicity Contact: Melissa Bruno, 212 207 7911

SOURCE HarperCollins