08/25/2022
Claire Hatcher-Smith (clucky1966 on QT) has signed with agent Chloe Seager of The Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency.
With your interest in...., I hope MIZZY MAYPOLE INVESTIGATES (Upper MG Mystery 45,000 words) will be a good fit with your list. Twelve-year-old Mizzy dreams of being a detective, like her great-aunt Miss Maypole. But with her reputation for tall-tales and an embarrassing fear of escalators (not to mention her Down's Syndrome), no one believes Mizzy is capable of solving anything. Dumped for the summer with cousins who've outgrown her, Mizzy feels even more sidelined than usual. But when her great-aunt's ghost makes a midnight visit to the spare room and claims only Mizzy can solve the mystery of her unsuspected murder, everything changes. Armed with her brand-new set of Pipsqueak markers and, under the guise of a family tree project for school, Mizzy sets about proving herself to her cousins—and the world. Problem is, the only people present on the night Miss Maypole died were her family. Which means...one of Mizzy's relatives is a murderer.
MIZZY is the result of my tween-age Agatha Christie addiction and a career-long desire to give young people with Down Syndrome a hero who looks like them. The manuscript could be pitched as Miss Marple meets Wonder and as a stand-alone with series potential, combines the old-school mystery of Robin Stevens' series Murder Most Unladylike with the more contemporary concerns of Sharna Jackson's High-rise Mystery.
I have worked with children with Down's Syndrome for 30 years as a speech and language therapist. Some of my clients have generously read the manuscript and support my endeavour, along with the Down's Syndrome Association (UK) who are excited by the manuscript's potential impact. I have completed two other MG novels, one of which (THE LOOKERS)was long-listed in the Mslexia Children's Novel Competition 2018 and earned me a selective place on Curtis Brown Creative's Writing YA and Children's Fiction course. I currently live on Vancouver Island, with my husband, our fourteen-year-old son, and a Korean rescue dog.