Shy Trans Banshee to Atlantic

27th March 2024

James Roxburgh, Publishing Director for Atlantic Fiction, has acquired World rights including audio and FTV in Tony Santorella’s Shy Trans Banshee. Bought directly from the author on the first day of London Book Fair, Shy Trans Banshee will be published Halloween 2025 in hardback, trade paperback and ebook.

Minority Report meets Slow Horses. With banshees.

Brian, Nik and Darby – three friends practiced in ennui, binge-drinking, hooking up with strangers and fighting supernatural crime (when Brian’s not committing it as a werewolf once a month) – have been sent by Abe Van Helsing (yes, one of those Van Helsings) to try to track down a colleague who has gone missing in London. As they putz around the city, following any leads that might help them find their British counterpart, they uncover a clairvoyancy smuggling ring, located right in the heart of the financial district. Who’s kidnapping all the fortunetellers in Soho and why? And is it coincidence, fate or something more sinister altogether that Maeve, a timid trans woman taking time out of her job to track down her birth mother, turns up on the gang’s doorstep at exactly this moment in time…and has the uncanny ability to know just what’s going to happen next?

Acquired on day one of the book fair, Shy Trans Banshee is the follow-up novel to Tony Santorella’s Bored Gay Werewolf, the next addition to an expanding universe of Grindr hook-ups, chosen families and magical misdeeds. Bored Gay Werewolf was an indie hit for Atlantic Books, selling close to 15,000 copies in the UK in first outing and landing film and tv rights with See-Saw, the makers of Netflix’s Heartstopper.

Tony Santorella was born and raised in Danvers, Massachusetts, site of the Salem Witch Trials and related hauntings. He moved to Washington, DC in 2005, where he waited tables until beginning his decade-long career in international development. He is the author of Bored Gay Werewolf. When he’s not writing, he’s spending time with his husband Robert and their cat, Fannie Mae.James Roxburgh says, ‘Perhaps my proudest moment as a literary publisher is being there right at the hot, soupy, primordial start of the Bored Gay Werewolf Universe™. Shy Trans Banshee is a fabulous addition to the expanding cosmos: anarchic, sharp, joyful and big-hearted, a novel that wrestles with determinism, fintech capitalism, finding your chosen people and figuring out what to sing at karaoke.’

Tony Santorella, author, says,

‘Living through one too many ‘once in a lifetime’ events can really wear a werewolf out. I’m grateful to have the support of Atlantic Books – who else would entertain my pitch of ‘what if a banshee had imposter syndrome?’ Truly cannot have a better partner for this. I’m so excited to share what’s next for the Bored Gay Werewolf Scooby Squad as they reluctantly use their supernatural gifts to fight the banal cruelty of the financial sector.’