Corsair bags journalist Marie-Claire Chappet’s ‘searing’ debut in four-way auction
Corsair, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group has acquired Broken Toys, the debut novel by journalist Marie-Claire Chappet.
Olivia Hutchings, editorial director, bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, in a four-way auction from Laurie Robertson at PFD. Corsair will publish Broken Toys in hardback in May 2027.
US rights sold to Caroline Weishuhn at HarperCollins in a six-figure pre-empt. Harper will be publishing alongside Corsair in 2027. Translation rights have also been sold in Ukraine (Laboratory) and Slovakia (Ikar). TV rights were optioned by A24 and Lookout Point in a 14-way auction. The rights were acquired from Rosie Gurtovoy at PFD.
Broken Toys is described as a “sharp, searing” campus novel; a “bitingly observant, propulsive coming-of-age story of sex, class, love and friendship” and “a love letter to the messy, glorious years at the end of teenage-hood and the start of your 20s.”
Its synopsis reads: “Esmé Polignac and Charlotte Cap couldn’t have less in common when they arrive at Montrose, an elite Scottish university on the blustering coast. Charlotte is a hopeless romantic with a destructive streak; Esmé, an enigmatic rich girl with a tragic past. But it will turn out they both need each other more than they know.
“Set during the dying days of pre-recession indulgence, we follow Charlotte and Esmé through smoke-filled nights, as toxic boys, broken families and destructive love-triangles threaten their enviable ecosystem. As we hurtle towards their final hurrah – a graduation party on a private Scottish island – the years of rumours, secrets and lies threatens to implode them.”
Marie-Claire Chappet is a writer and journalist based in London. For 15 years she has worked in magazines and newspapers, as a features writer at the Times and Sunday Times, and as a freelance journalist for publications from the Telegraph and Grazia to Elle and Vogue Scandinavia. She was features editor at British Glamour and is currently a contributing editor at Harper’s Bazaar.
She said: “I am so delighted and humbled by the response to Broken Toys so far. I never dreamed that anyone would connect to these characters as much as I did. Eternally grateful to my agents Laurie Robertson and Rosie Gurtovoy and my editors Olivia Hutchings and Caroline Weishuhn for making everything possible.”
Hutchings commented: “I knew from the first chapter that Broken Toys was an incredibly special novel. It explores one of the most enduring, complicated love stories of all – the love between two female friends. Set on the cusp of the Great Recession, Marie-Claire portrays what it was like for the young people promised a bright future that will never come – something that is sadly far too relevant today. I cannot wait to share it with readers in 2027.”
