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WORK TITLE: The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Sarah Sky
BIRTHDATE: 1971
WEBSITE: https://www.sarahjharris.com/
CITY: London
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017070779
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017070779
HEADING: Harris, Sarah J., 1971-
000 00927nz a2200157n 450
001 10616195
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008 171128n| azannaabn |a aaa
010 __ |a n 2017070779
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC
046 __ |f 1971-03-09 |2 edtf
053 _0 |a PR6108.A766
100 1_ |a Harris, Sarah J., |d 1971-
500 1_ |w r |i Alternate identity: |a Sky, Sarah
670 __ |a The color of Bee Larkham’s murder, 2018: |b ECIP t.p. (Sarah J. Harris) data view (Birth Date: 03/09/1971)
670 __ |a Amazon website, viewed November 28, 2017 |b (The color of Bee Larkham’s murder: about the author, Sarah J. Harris is an author and freelance education journalist who regularly writes for national British newspapers. She is the author of the young adult series Jessica Cole: Model Spy, written under her pen name, Sarah Sky. She lives in London with her husband and two young children. The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder is her first adult novel)
PERSONAL
Born 1971; married; children: two sons.
EDUCATION:Received degrees from Cardiff University and Nottingham University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Education journalist and author.
AVOCATIONS:Kickboxing, writing, karate, martial arts, reading.
WRITINGS
Author’s works have been translated into Czech, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Turkish, and Hungarian.
SIDELIGHTS
Sarah J. Harris works predominantly as an education journalist and writer. She is also known by her alternate pen name, Sarah Sky. Under this name, she has released numerous pieces of YA fiction.
The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder marks Harris’s introduction to the Adult fiction demographic. The book focuses on a character by the name of Jasper, a teenage boy who finds himself in the middle of a murder case. It all starts when he meets a new neighbor, the titular Bee Larkham. Bee and Jasper hit it off immediately, as they both have come to admire a group of parakeets that have taken up residence near Bee’s home. Yet Bee doesn’t get on well with everyone in their neighborhood; she has become known as a troublemaker thanks to her fondness of loud music and her persistence in drawing in the parakeets residing near her, which are viewed as pests by the rest of the neighborhood. Everything rapidly changes for them, however, when Jasper agrees to help Bee flirt with one of Jasper’s schoolmates. The situation ends with Bee losing her life, and Jasper claiming to be responsible for all of it. What’s more is he believes his father is responsible for having gotten rid of the Bee’s corpse, but he doesn’t know where it could be. Yet there is another problem: Jasper’s account of Bee’s killing is skewed.
Jasper lives with both synesthesia and autism, the former of which alters his perceptions of the world around him. Not only does he struggle to remember other’s faces, but every sound he hears comes with its very own color. In the case of Bee and her death, Jasper remembers the event in shades of icy blue. He also remembers a deep cut etched across his stomach and a knife, its blade coated with blood. It is up to Jasper to piece together what he remembers, so he can get to the root of what happened the night Bee died. In an issue of Kirkus Reviews, one writer called The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder “a potentially engaging mystery embedded in an overly daunting puzzle.” Booklist contributor Michael Cart felt the book “is a kind of tour de force with its unusual narrator and an intriguing plot that will have readers guessing to the end.” A reviewer in Publishers Weekly recommended the book to “readers enamored of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Rosie Project.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2018, Michael Cart, review of The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder, p. 26.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2018, review of The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder.
ONLINE
Bookseller, https://www.thebookseller.com/ (March 6, 2017), Natasha Onwuemezi, “HC snaps up murder tale in six-figure pre-LBF deal.”
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (May 21, 2018), review of The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder.
Sarah J. Harris website, https://www.sarahjharris.com (July 5, 2018), author profile.
Sarah.J.Harris is the author of The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder, her first adult novel.
She also writes Young Adult books under the pen name, Sarah Sky, and has three books published by Scholastic.
Sarah is a freelance education journalist who lives in London with her husband and two young children. She loves writing, reading and martial arts - currently a black belt in karate and a green belt in kickboxing.
My Story
I'm an author and freelance education journalist, writing for national newspapers.
The Colour of Bee Larkham's Murder is my first adult novel and was published by HarperCollins in May 2018 and will be published by Touchstone Books in the United States in June 2018, with other countries including Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Turkey, China and the Czech Republic to follow.
I have three YA books published by Scholastic under the Jessica Cole: Model Spy series. Code Red Lipstick, Fashion Assassin and Catwalk Criminal are written under a pen name, Sarah Sky, and also published in Germany.
I grew up in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, and studied English at Nottingham University before gaining a post-graduate diploma in journalism at Cardiff University.
I trained as a journalist at the Western Daily Press in Bristol, where my highlight was interviewing screen legend Charlton Heston and my low point was being sneezed on by a cow at a fatstock competition.
I enjoy martial arts - I'm a black belt in karate and a green belt in kick-boxing. I live in London with my husband and two young sons.
HC snaps up murder tale in six-figure pre-LBF deal
Published March 6, 2017 by Natasha Onwuemezi
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HarperCollins has secured a six-figure deal for The Colour of Bee Larkham's Murder by Sarah J Harris in a "whirlwind" pre-empt ahead of LBF.
Martha Ashby, commissioning editor at HarperFiction, bought UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights in a one-book deal with Jemima Forrester at David Higham. This is Forrester’s first major deal since joining the agency last July.
The Colour of Bee Larkham's Murder tells the story of Jasper, a young boy with both synaesthesia and face-blindness. Jasper has seen a new colour, one that he’s never seen before: the colour of murder. As he struggles to get to the bottom of the mystery, including his own role in his neighbour Bee’s murder, someone out there is determined to stop him.
Forrester said The Colour of Bee Larkham's Murder was the book she "dreamt" of finding when she moved into agenting. "It has a fascinating premise, a page-turning plot and an unforgettable central character at its heart. I loved Jasper immediately. He’s utterly unique, unintentionally funny and heartbreakingly vulnerable," she said.
Ashby said: "I’m over the moon to be working with Sarah and Jemima on this brilliant book. I loved the pitch from the moment I heard it, and I loved Sarah’s beautiful writing from the first page, as she whisked me into Jasper’s colourful yet claustrophobic world. Funny, heartfelt with a cracking mystery at its heart, Jasper is a fantastically intriguing and unreliable narrator. This is going to be a huge book for HarperFiction in spring 2018 and I can’t wait to publish this with the fanfare that it deserves."
Harris added: "I've been overwhelmed by the amount of interest in my debut adult novel and know I've found the perfect home for it. I'm so thankful to Martha Ashby and my amazing agent, Jemima Forrester, for helping make my dreams come true."
The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder is Harris' debut adult novel but she is the author of Scholastic's YA Jessica Cole: Model Spy series written under her pen name, Sarah Sky.
HarperCollins will publish The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder in hardback in Spring 2018.
6/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Print Marked Items
The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder
Michael Cart
Booklist.
114.18 (May 15, 2018): p26.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder.
By Sarah J. Harris.
June 2018.368p. Touchstone, $26 (9781501193378).
"My life is a thrilling kaleidoscope of colors," 13-year-old Jasper declares. And no wonder, for the boy has
synesthesia; he sees sounds as colors. He also lacks the ability to recognize faces, even that of his father if
the man is taken out of context. He recognizes people by the colors their voices make or by markers such as
glasses, facial hair, or familiar clothing. And, finally, he is autistic. That he is also the narrator of Harris'
compelling mystery is a bold choice on the author's part, one that she brings off in fine style. When a
woman named Bee Larkham moves in across the street, she and Jasper bond over their love for the wild
parakeets that live in the tree in her garden. But when Bee falls in love with Lucas, a 15-year-old boy in
Jasper's school, she persuades Jasper to act as a messenger, delivering letters and small gifts to the boy. This
can't end well, and it doesn't. Bee is murdered, and Jasper insists he is the murderer and that his father is
complicit, having taken the body away and hidden it. But is that the truth? Jasper is an unreliable narrator,
isn't he? This import from England is a kind of tour de force with its unusual narrator and an intriguing plot
that will have readers guessing to the end. Color this one successful.--Michael Cart
YA: Teen fans of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003) won't want to
miss this one. MC.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Cart, Michael. "The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder." Booklist, 15 May 2018, p. 26. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541400817/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=cd18f30e.
Accessed 23 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541400817
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Harris, Sarah J.: THE COLOR OF BEE
LARKHAM'S MURDER
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Harris, Sarah J. THE COLOR OF BEE LARKHAM'S MURDER Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (Adult
Fiction) $26.00 6, 12 ISBN: 978-1-5011-8789-6
A teenager with autism becomes embroiled in the murder of a neighbor--but as culprit or witness?
Comparisons of this novel with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003) will be inevitable
but, sadly, unwarranted. Thirteen-year-old Jasper Wishart, the protagonist of Harris' first novel for adults
(after having written YA under a pseudonym), is on the spectrum, and what an infinitely varied spectrum it
is. He has synesthesia--sights and, particularly, in his case, sounds evoke a range of colors most people can't
see. But he is face-blind, unable to recognize even those closest to him except by hue of voice and clothing.
He takes everything literally, including metaphors, idioms, and empty threats, like those of his blustery
neighbor David Gilbert. The narrative, told exclusively from Jasper's first-person perspective, ratchets
between past and present as Jasper tries to reconstruct events in his London street by painting the colors of
his memories. He thinks he killed his new neighbor, Bee Larkham, but has only disordered images, a
bloodied knife, and his own stomach slash wound as evidence. His father, who has raised Jasper alone since
the deaths of his mother and grandmother, is coping by covering up--Jasper is sure Dad disposed of Bee's
body. Jasper recalls how Bee, a musician and Australian transplant, fomented neighborhood squabbles by
blaring loud music and deliberately luring wild parakeets to feeders in her front yard. (These descendants of
escaped pet birds have become an invasive pest in the U.K.) Even more disruptive is Bee's questionable
behavior with her young music students, especially Jasper's schoolmate Lucas Drury. Although Harris
strives to keep things coherent with chapter headings dated using Jasper's idiosyncratic color markers,
readers must work to make sense of it all. Unpacking Jasper's color-coded reality becomes as tedious as
deciphering hieroglyphics. Those few instances when Jasper delivers a straight narrative are essential for
exposition purposes but feel like a violation of the novel's fourth wall. The end result of Harris'
determination to spare no synesthetic detail, is, well, monochromatic.
A potentially engaging mystery embedded in an overly daunting puzzle.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Harris, Sarah J.: THE COLOR OF BEE LARKHAM'S MURDER." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375260/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c36a017c. Accessed 23 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534375260
The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder
Sarah J. Harris. Touchstone, $26 (368p) ISBN 978-1-5011-8789-6
In this fantastic debut, Harris enters the technicolor mind of 13-year-old Jasper Wishart. Jasper has always had synesthesia, which for him means he sees specific colors for all the sounds around him—people’s distinct voices, barking dogs, slamming doors. Jasper, who lives alone with his disinterested father and suffers from learning disabilities, spends much of his time gazing out his window at an oak tree filled with parakeets. The parakeet-occupied tree across the street belongs to Bee Larkham, a new girl who has been causing trouble in the neighborhood by playing her music too loudly and feeding the noisy birds. Jasper’s synesthesia hampers his ability to recognize people’s faces, and when Bee suddenly disappears, Jasper, who keeps seeing the “ice blue crystals” of murder, must paint the events leading up to that night to get things straight and solve the mystery. Readers enamored of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Rosie Project will delight in Harris’s sparkling novel. (June)
DETAILS
Reviewed on: 05/21/2018
Release date: 06/12/2018
Compact Disc - 978-1-5082-5505-5
Downloadable Audio - 288 pages - 978-1-5082-5504-8