Black & White lands Pan Macmillan editor Castelletti’s ‘joyful queer ode to the classics’

Black & White Publishing, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK, is to publish The Manor House Governess by Charlie Castelletti under the pseudonym C A Castle.

Campbell Brown, managing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Abi Fellows, in association with Caroline Eisenmann at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency. The Manor House Governess will be published on 9th November 2023.

Described as “an exquisite, eloquent ode to the classics”,  the story follows Brontë Ellis, an orphan raised with chilly indifference at an all-boys boarding school. Stifled by rigid rules, he is forbidden from expressing his genuine gender identity, until a position as a live-in tutor provides a welcome escape.

When a tragic fire burns through the idyllic peace of Greenwood Manor, Bron begins to sense dark secrets smouldering beneath the surface as he sifts through the wreckage, and soon is not sure what to believe – especially when his growing attraction to Darcy, the eldest son of the Edwards family, clouds his vision. Filled with warmth and wit uniquely its own, fans of Lex Croucher’s Reputation (St Martin’s Griffin) and André Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name (Atlantic Books) will adore this contemporary queer homage to classic literature.