Taking names and kicking ass in YA book deals this month.

My FinePrint colleague Suzie Townsend and I are celebrating No Whining Week by sharing some good news: We've been very busy during the first half of of April selling a lot of fabulous young adult manuscripts for our most excellent clients. And the important thing to remember about all three of these authors is that this is the FIRST YA novel for all of them. Who says there's no room for debut authors anymore???

Debut author Sarah Wylie’s ALL THESE LIVES, pitched as a literary YA My Sister's Keeper, about a girl who believes she has nine lives and copes with her fraternal twin sister's leukemia by setting out to rid herself of all her extra lives, only to discover that she might have only the one life after all, to Margaret Ferguson at Margaret Ferguson Books (FSG), in a two-book deal, at auction, by Suzie Townsend at FinePrint Literary Management (NA). jacqueline@fineprintlit.com

Conqueror's Shadow author Ari Marmell’s first YA novel, HOUSEHOLD GODS, a Renaissance-style fantasy adventure about a brilliant but reckless teenage thief who happens to have an invisible god living inside her head, to Lou Anders at Pyr Books, by Colleen Lindsay at FinePrint Literary Management. (World English) jacqueline@fineprintlit.com

Irish writer Ruth F. Long’s contemporary YA fantasy MAY QUEEN, a darkly engaging mix of romance, adventure, fairytale, and folklore, about a teenage girl thrust into a faerie world where nothing is what it seems, no one is who they say, trust is a variable commodity, love can be used against her, and where the veil slowly lifts until she finds herself faced with a choice between salvation or sacrifice—and not just her own, to Jessica Garrison at Dial Books for Young Readers, in a preempt, by Colleen Lindsay at FinePrint Literary Management (World). donne.forrest@us.penguingroup.com

And now you're all busy writing down these names so you can pre-order all of these wonderful books, aren't you??? I THOUGHT SO!