It’s no news that, in young adult literature, a high concept can often equal a high paycheck, especially in this post-Harry Potter world. According to Publishers Weekly, HarperTeen has just shelled out seven figures for a debut series about high school kids who discover that their lives are mirroring a Greek tragedy. The first book, Starcrossed, has a young Helen of Troy figure having to deal with the fact that being with the boy she loves might lead to a new Trojan War. The following entries, Persephone’s Garden and Ilium, detail Helen’s katabasis to the underworld and an end-of-times battle between gods and humans respectively.
First-time author Josephine Angelini dubs it “a Percy Jackson for teenage girls,” but it’s hard not to think that the publisher might have seen it a bit more as “Twilight of the gods.” With its high school setting, forbidden love, foggy locale, and young female target audience, the series looks like a possible pretender to the throne currently occupied by Stephenie Meyer’s behemoth saga about face-sucking bloodsuckers.
What do you think, Shelf Lifers? Excited for this series? Or are you too busy writing your own attempt to get a piece of that sweet YA fiction pie? I know I am. Publishers, look out for my upcoming Invisible Box trilogy, about a teenage girl’s love for a quiet young boy who she discovers comes from a family of mimes. You can send the checks courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
Nightlight — the Harvard Lampoon’s first novel parody in since 1969′s Bored of the Rings — features the “pallid” Belle Goose, who falls for Edwart Mullen on the first day of school in her new hometown, Switchblade: “Looking into his eyes I felt waves of electricity, currents of electrons charging towards me … Caught in his ionized hypnosis, the old adage came to mind: Beautiful enough to kill, gut, stuff, and frame above your fireplace.
For the first time in 40 years, The Harvard Lampoon will publish a parody novel, this time putting a tongue-in-cheek spin on Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Twilight series. Random House’s Vintage Books plans to release Nightlight as a paperback original on Nov. 3, just in time for the Nov. 20 opening of the Twilight movie sequel New Moon. “‘Funny’ might get you a blog post these days, but it’s the Lampoon-level of satire that makes Nightlight worth every pseudo-bloodsucking, angst-ridden page,” says a Vintage press release. “Nightlight stakes at the heart of what makes Twilight tick…or, really, cuts to the core of it…. Brooding and hilarious, let Nightlight be your guide through the Twilight fandom that has eclipsed the mind of every teenager you have ever met.” The last Harvard Lampoon satirical novel, a J.R.R. Tolkien send-up titled Bored of the Rings, was published in 1969.
![twilight-manga_l[1]](http://ewshelflife.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/twilight-manga_l11.jpg "twilight-manga_l[1]")
For those of you who can’t get enough Edward and Bella, EW can announce — exclusively — that Yen Press will be publishing Twilight in graphic-novel form, publication date still to be determined. Though Korean artist Young Kim is creating the art, Meyer herself is deeply immersed in the project, reviewing every panel.
