Elodie Harper signs with DK Children’s for her first middle grade trilogy
Bestselling author of the Wolf Den trilogy, Elodie Harper, has signed with DK Children’s to write her first books for children. The currently unnamed series will be a middle grade trilogy described as “ancient Rome meets My Family and Other Animals”. DK Children’s trade strategy director Arabella Stein bought world English rights, including audio, from Juliet Mushens after Stein had approached Harper with the idea of writing for children.
The first book in Harper’s illustrated triology will publish in Autumn 2026, with the second and third titles following at nine-month intervals. The series is set in ancient Rome “with a fast-paced plot” featuring Pliny, its 10-year-old protagonist.
Harper said that when she was approached: “When Arabella Stein and the amazing team at DK approached Juliet and me with a suggestion of writing for children, I was absolutely thrilled - as was my son! I knew almost at once that I wanted to reimagine two of my favourite Roman characters, Pliny the Elder and his sister Plinia, as children. Pliny is famous for his work on natural history but his fascination with animals and nature will take a much lighter and more comic turn here - for the reader at least, if not always for his family!”
Stein said: “Elodie is a winning combination: an author who draws in her readers with a fast-driven plot led narrative and backs it up with incredible historical research. We’re thrilled to bring her unparalleled talent to our list. Elodie has already captivated adult readers and we’re so looking forward to bringing her pacy, unputdownable narrative packed full of gods, myths and legends to the DK fiction list”.
Mushens said: “Ancient Rome meets My Family And Other Animals, in the hands of such a natural storyteller. We’re so excited to launch this new branch of Elodie’s writing with the brilliant Arabella Stein and the DK team”.
Elodie Harper is an author whose bestselling Wolf Den trilogy has won wide acclaim. The first book The Wolf Den, won the Glass Bell Award, was shortlisted for Page turner of the year at the British Book Awards and was a Waterstones Book of the Month. The second in the series, The House with the Golden Door, was a Sunday Times top 10 bestseller.
The Wolf Den trilogy has sold into 20 territories worldwide and has been optioned for TV. The third and final instalment, The Temple of Fortuna, was published in the UK and the US in November 2023. Elodie was previously a reporter at ITV News Anglia, and before that worked as a producer at Channel 4 News.