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Penguin Children's has snapped up rights to The Breathing series by self-published author Rebecca Donovan.
Donovan self-published Reason to Breathe and its sequel Barely Breathing, which Penguin says sold more than 100,000 copies on Amazon, and the company will publish her third title Out of Breath.
Senior fiction editor Lindsey Heaven acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Alex Slater on behalf of Erica Spellman Silverman at Trident Media Group and will publish the e-book of Reason to Breathe and Barely Breathing on 8th November this year, publishing the print editions including Out of Breath in 2013.
The series centres around a schoolgirl called Emma Thomas with the first book described as “a unique tale of life-changing love, unspeakable cruelty, and one girl’s fragile grasp of hope".
Penguin said “Rebecca is part of a growing number of newly-successful self-published authors who write about and for what has been coined a ‘new adult’ audience—namely young people, late teens to early twenties, who are transitioning into the modern adult world. This type of fiction is a natural progression from the successful young adult/teen market.”
Heaven added that the trilogy is “an incredible combination of an innocent love, a brutal betrayal and unwavering hope that we already know readers have identified with in their thousands.” Donovan said she was “grateful” Penguin is helping to share Emma’s story and widen her audience.