India Smythe in Love?

Suitable for 12+ readers

An ashen-faced Rich reappeared from the garage with my dad.
‘Great news,’ he stammered. ‘Your Dad’s decided to join my band.’

14-year-old India Smythe finally has a boyfriend. She’s got together with Rich Evans, the kind orchestra geek with the extra-long forehead. But life still isn’t easy; not when you have to deal with meet-the-parents dinners, revision techniques that go horribly wrong, smug tutors who think you fancy them and online love surveys that ask if your boyfriend is more lion or chipmunk. And when the world starts hurtling towards lockdown, how is India supposed to find the time to work out the most important issue of all: is she in love?

Praise for India Smythe Stands Up:

‘She’s whip-smart, funny … I love reading Sarah Govett’ Dame Emma Thompson
‘The new YA comedy teens need… When a book like India Smythe Stands Up comes along you need to
get it into as many hands as possible’ Lucas Maxwell, BookRiot
‘One of the funniest protagonists ever … she fits in with Bridget Jones and Georgia Nicolson … the
perfect antidote to the grey, grim times in which we find ourselves’ TeenLibrarian.co.uk
‘A genuinely laugh-out-loud funny book with a fresh authentic voice’ Teach Secondary Magazine
‘Laugh-out-loud story with a thoughtful subtext’ Books for Keeps
South Wales Evening Post’s Book of the Week, ‘So funny I couldn’t put it down.’
‘A very funny book that still manages to deal with the more serious issues of friendship, social media
and bullying’ School Librarian Magazine

   

‘She’s whip-smart, funny … I love reading Sarah Govett’ Dame Emma Thompson

‘The new YA comedy teens need… When a book like India Smythe Stands Up comes along you need toget it into as many hands as possible’ Lucas Maxwell, BookRiot

‘One of the funniest protagonists ever … she fits in with Bridget Jones and Georgia Nicolson … the perfect antidote to the grey, grim times in which we find ourselves’ TeenLibrarian.co.uk

‘A genuinely laugh-out-loud funny book with a fresh authentic voice’ Teach Secondary Magazine

‘Laugh-out-loud story with a thoughtful subtext’ Books for Keeps

South Wales Evening Post’s Book of the Week, ‘So funny I couldn’t put it down.’

‘A very funny book that still manages to deal with the more serious issues of friendship, social media and bullying’ School Librarian Magazine

We believe that the best people to decide whether a teen book is funny and relatable are teenagers themselves, so we asked over 30 teenagers from schools up and down the country what they thought.

‘Literally ROFL’ Maame O, aged 14

‘Brilliantly written, made me laugh out loud millions of times’ Amelia L, aged 13 

‘Hilarious and just plainly brilliant’ Svetlana T, aged 11

‘One of the best books I’ve ever read’ Isabella, aged 12

‘Soooo funny … I would 10,000% recommend this to everyone’ Cleo, aged 15

‘Conveys a really powerful message about friendship and status’ Sophie, aged 12

‘Hilarious … really captured the reality of school … I loved it!’ Eliza B, aged 13

‘A must for all teens’ Holly-H C, aged 14

Sarah Govett graduated with a first-class degree in Law from Oxford University. After qualifying as a solicitor, she set up her own tutoring agency, which specialises in working with teenagers. 

Her critically acclaimed The Territory series was shortlisted for the Times Chicken House Children’s Fiction Prize in 2014 and won the Gateshead Teen Book Prize in February 2017. It also won the Trinity Schools Book Award in 2018 (as voted for by children from the 24 participating schools across London and the South East). The television and film rights have recently been optioned by New Pictures – executive producers of Netflix’s The Innocents and producers of BBC’s The Missing. 

Sarah is an in-demand speaker at secondary schools and has the support of a network of school librarians, independent bookshops and numerous Waterstones stores. Two schools even chose to gift a copy of The Territory to an entire Year Group as part of a reading push. She has also appeared at the Southbank Literature Festival, The Barnes Children’s Literature Festival, The Edinburgh International Book Festival and will be at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival. She has featured on BBC Radio and is a contributor to Huffington Post.