Press Release from HarperCollins

I've been biting my nails for a few weeks to be able to tell you this, so here it is at last.

News
HARPERCOLLINS ACQUIRE SARWAT CHADDA’S NEW KIND OF HERO
London, 07th February 2011
Nick Lake, Editorial Director, has won a hotly contested auction to bring the Ash Mistry Chronicles, a new series by Sarwat Chadda, to the HarperCollins list. The three-book deal, for UK & Commonwealth rights, was acquired by Nick from Sarah Davies at Greenhouse Literary.
Ash Mistry and the Savage Palace – the first book in the series – will launch in Spring 2012. An edge-of-your seat action adventure, it introduces a major new character for 9–12s, 14-year-old British-Indian Ashoka Mistry, better known as Ash.
Ash hates India. Which is a problem since his father has brought the whole family there to take up a dream job with the mysterious Lord Savage. But Ash immediately suspects something is very wrong with the eccentric millionaire. Soon, Ash finds himself in a desperate battle to stop Savage's masterplan – the opening of the Iron Gates that have kept Ravana, the demon king, at bay for four millennia...
Sarwat Chadda's first novel Devil’s Kiss was shortlisted for the Branford Boase First Novel Award. The Ash Mistry Chronicles is his first series for 9-12s. Like the protagonist of this new series, Sarwat came to the folktales of his parents’ culture late in life – vivid stories of heroes, demons and gods that totally blew him away. Now, he’s ready to bring those stories to a whole new generation
Commenting on the deal Nick Lake said, “Ash Mistry is a brilliant, gripping read, with an action-packed plot that starts in top gear and stays there, while taking the reader on a mind-expanding journey into contemporary and mythological India. Fans of Rick Riordan and Eoin Colfer will devour this awesomely entertaining book in a single sitting.”
Sarwat Chadda added, “Everyone's read the adventures of Hercules and Thor. But the vast mythology and history of the Indian sub-continent has been strangely neglected in children's fiction. Through Ash, a modern British-born Asian, I hope to immerse the reader in a world as magical and as thrilling as anything to come out of the more familiar Greek and Norse mythology. Heroes are heroes and we love them wherever they come from. It’s time we met some Indian ones...”

Note to Editors:
• HarperCollins UK publishes a wide range of books, from cutting-edge contemporary fiction, to block-busting thrillers, from fantasy literature and children’s books to enduring classics. It also publishes a great selection of non-fiction titles, including history, celebrity memoirs, biographies, popular science, dictionaries, maps, reference titles and education books, and its digital business is thriving. With nearly 200 years of history HarperCollins publishes some of the world’s foremost authors, from Nobel prizewinners to worldwide bestsellers. In addition it publishes the works of Agatha Christie, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. It was the first major UK trade publisher to go carbon neutral in December 2007.
• HarperCollins Children’s Books is one of the leading publishers of children’s books, recognised for nurturing new talent as well as boasting a reputable list of established best-selling authors. Respected worldwide for its tradition of publishing quality, award-winning books for young readers, HarperCollins is home to many children’s classics, including The Chronicles of Narnia, Noddy, the Paddington stories, The Cat in the Hat and The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and to some of the biggest names in children’s literature past and present, including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, Dr. Seuss, Louise Rennison, Darren Shan, Judith Kerr and former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo.
• HC UK and International is responsible for the UK and Ireland, India, Australia and New Zealand and is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, one of the leading English-language book publishers in the world. HarperCollins Publishers is a wholly-owned division of News Corporation, the media conglomerate and parent of Times Newspapers Ltd, British Sky Broadcasting and Twentieth Century Fox.