Hodderscape pre-empts Frankenstein-inspired fantasy from Holly Race
Hodderscape has pre-empted a crossover Gothic fantasy from bestselling author Holly Race in a two-book deal.
Editorial director Charlie Castelletti acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Zoë Plant at the Bent Agency. The first book, Unfortunate Creatures, will be published in March 2027.
Pitched as Frankenstein meets Starling House, Unfortunate Creatures is set in a university city obsessed with magic innovation. The blurb continues: "Eighteen-year-old Crissa Blackwood, who mourns the death of her soulmate, challenges her wealthy rival and his friends to perform daring magical experiments in a remote mansion. Only, she’s working towards her own hidden agenda: bring her soulmate back from the dead. What she didn’t expect was to fall for someone very much alive in the process."
Castelletti said: "I’m so proud to be bringing the wonderfully talented Holly Race to the Hodderscape list. When Unfortunate Creatures first landed in my inbox, it was like an instant jolt of life to my twisted heart; a killer hook from a brilliant writer and Frankenstein and Mary Shelley as the influence? Count me in.
"With her boyfriend’s freshly excavated heart in hand, Crissa is the FMC of my dreams, Emres the complicated man we’ve all had to deal with in one way or another (shock horror) and the complex Loren is an exciting, loveable, love interest to root for. I will only be asking one question from now on: how far would you go to bring back the one you love from the dead?"
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Race said: "From the moment I first spoke to Charlie, I knew Hodderscape was the perfect home for Unfortunate Creatures. Our shared vision for the story, and where to take it, was so perfectly aligned.
"Writing this Gothic, capital-R Romantic tale, which is inspired by both Frankenstein and the legendary holiday when Mary Shelley began writing it, has been an absolute joy. Complex relationships, dark academia, haunted mansions and a love triangle between a mysterious stranger and a heart in a jar… I can’t wait to share it with you all next year."
Race is the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Tudor-inspired fantasy trilogy Queens of Elben (Orbit), and the YA urban fantasy trilogy City of Nightmares (Hot Key). She is currently a Royal Literary Fund fellow, attached to the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge University.
