Wakefield Press is delighted to announce the acquisition of Australian and New Zealand rights to Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan’s debut YA novel, Saltblood, via Martin Shaw of Shaw Literary. Publication of Saltblood is expected in March 2027.
Find out more about this exciting debut below.
In a coastal town split by postcode and privilege, sixteen-year-old Sheri Bung, checkout chick, westie, and outsider to the local surf elite, stumbles into the line-up carrying nothing but grief, a tuna treat, and a need to belong.
When her mother dies suddenly, Sheri uncovers a legacy of loss, a stillborn brother, and a buried passion for surfing that sends her hurtling toward the waves, and the truth.
Navigating class lines, tangled loyalties, and the brutal beauty of the ocean, Sheri trains for a local comp, not to win, but to carve her place – fierce, flawed, and finally free – in a world that never expected her to stand up, let alone ride.
Head of YA Maddy Sexton says, ‘Sheri is everything I love in a character – she’s compulsively readable, deeply human, and hiding a heart of gold under her spiky demeanour. Nicole’s immersive writing style and uncanny knack for capturing the teen voice will have readers riding Sheri’s wave all the way back to shore.’
Saltblood creates an unfiltered intimacy with Sheri using a fluid style that rejects polish and convention, mirroring the ocean and the messy urgency of adolescence. Think Puberty Blues meets Looking for Alibrandi reimagined for a contemporary audience.
Lenoir-Jourdan says, ‘Puberty Blues got under my salt-crusted skin early and made itself comfortable. I briefly picked up a board as a teenager, then found surfing again at the age of thirty-nine. Addiction (as in surf addiction) followed, along with daily surfs and a pressing need to avoid the Spit Bridge traffic. Thus, I moved my office from a Hyde Park view – ‘westie’, according to the warped cartography of Northern Beaches’ locals – to Manly on the insular peninsula.
‘That surf rebirth became the seed of Saltblood, a YA novel that explores the complexification of the female surf protagonist. Sheri has escaped the Chiko Roll queue, that deep-fried holding pen of Australian surf mythology, and paddled into the break, where belonging is hard-won, and seldom granted without a little blood in the water.’
Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan is a PhD student under the supervision of Felicity Castagna and Rachel Morley at Western Sydney University. She is a casual academic at Macquarie and Western Sydney Universities and writes freelance for a number of publications. She has also studied at UTS under Andrew Pippos whom she credits for ‘finding her voice’.
Author photograph by Jessica Hronos
The hugest thank you from me. I am tremendously excited that my first novel will be published by such a quality independent publisher, especially one based in a state where I briefly did time as a six-year-old at Blair Athol Primary School and where (as a six year old) I had letter to the editor published in the Adelaide Advertiser. It seems that I have some unfinished business with the wonderful state of South Australia.