HQ wins Mike and Claire Gayle's body-swap romcom at auction
HQ has acquired “the world’s first middle-age body-swap romcom” in the debut joint outing by bestseller Mike Gayle – who, along with Jo Nesbo, is one of today’s (11th April) London Book Fair Authors of the Day – and his wife Claire.
Clare Gordon, editorial director at the HarperCollins division, acquired UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights to Not Quite Myself and a further novel from Ariella Feiner at United Agents in a three-way auction. The book will be published on 11th March 2027.
Not Quite Myself follows Sian and Paul, who have been married for 24 years. After they drop their youngest child at university, Sian tells her husband she wants to separate – "but things get weird when they awake the morning after their first night apart to discover they’ve swapped bodies..."
Gordon said: "While so many romcoms fade out on sunset and a wedding, Mike and Claire have captured brilliantly the wrestle to stay in love long after the meet-cute and butterflies. It’s laugh-out-loud funny but also beautifully poignant and achingly relatable. The whole HQ team has fallen in love with this novel, and we can’t wait to introduce Paul and Sian to readers."
Mike Gayle is one of the UK’s most successful writers of contemporary love stories, having brought in £6m through NielsenIQ BookScan across his 20 books, all of which have been published in the UK by Hodder. The Birmingham-based former journalist’s work has been translated into more than 30 languages. In 2021, he was given the Romantic Novelists’ Association award for Outstanding Achievement.
Mike and Claire Gayle said that they could not “wait to share Not Quite Myself, the world’s first middle-aged body-swap romcom, with readers everywhere”.
Feiner added: “The idea for a middle-aged body swap romcom is such a clever and fun concept, and as a married couple who have been together for 30 years now, Mike and Claire have been able to imbue Not Quite Myself with a relatability, honesty, emotion and heart that will be sure to resonate with many readers.”
Kate Mills, HQ publisher, said: “We’re so looking forward to publishing Mike and Claire’s novel at HQ. It’s so clever, smart and funny, but it lands big punches too. The team is already buzzing with ideas for publication and I can’t wait to see it in readers’ hands next year.”
