Madeleine Gray’s second novel, ‘Chosen Family’ sells to Summit Books and internationally

Summit Books has acquired ANZ right to Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray, via Grace Heifetz at a4 Literary.

Internationally, Chosen Family has also been acquired by Lettice Franklin at Orion (UK), via John Ash at CAA, and by Caroline Zancan at Mariner Books (NA) via Dana Murphy at Trellis Literary Management, on behalf of Grace Heifetz.

‘Set in Sydney over eighteen years, Chosen Family follows Nell and Eve as they grow into themselves, as they both love and destroy each other, from school, to university, to careers, to motherhood,’ said the publisher.

Gray is a novelist, academic, arts writer and book critic. Her debut Green Dot (A&U) won the 2025 Russell Prize for Humour Writing.

Summit publishing director Jane Palfreyman said: ‘Madeleine Gray was instantly confirmed as one of our most original, brilliant and hilarious writers on the release and rapturous reception of her first novel, Green Dot […] Chosen Family takes us further, deeper and darker; this time our laughter is as uncontained, but our reading is tempered by tenderness, wisdom and heartbreak. Maddy has written a novel of love and friendship that will be clung to like a life raft, celebrated like a new-born, remembered like a lost love and talked about like the life of the party.’

Gray said: ‘Chosen Family is a book that is very close to my heart – it’s a paean to intense female friendship, to queer family, to complicated love, to alternative parenting, to growing up with and through others. It is funny and dark and hopeful. As Emily Dickinson wrote: “My story has a moral, I have a missing friend.”.’

Summit Books plans to release Chosen Family on 28 October 2025.