Leah Cypess sold her first two YA fantasy novels to HarperCollins’s Greenwillow Books via agent Bill Contardi.
The first book will be called Shifter. Contardi describes the book:
“Everyone tells Isabel that she is the Shifter—the ancient shape-shifting creature who has protected the kings of Samorna for centuries. They need her to be the Shifter. Prince Rokan risked everything when he rode into her forest to summon her to his side; Dakkin, the handsome magician’s apprentice, has devoted his life to studying her legend; and even Princess Clarisse, who fears and hates her, depends on Isabel’s powers to further her own plans.
“But Isabel doesn’t feel like the Shifter. She feels like a lonely sixteen-year-old girl, beset by flashes of memory that do more to confuse than to help her. If she is the Shifter, why can’t she change her shape? Why doesn’t she remember what made her flee the castle so many years ago? As she is drawn deeper into a web of magic and assassination, Isabel will have no choice but to look for answers. But her search will lead her to the one question the Shifter hasn’t faced in a thousand years: where does she come from, and what does she really want?”
Cypess had been a lawyer at a large New York law firm for two years before turning to full-time writing. She now lives in Boston.