HarperCollins to Publish Children's Fantasy Series by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini

Posted on January 9, 2012

HarperCollins has bought the rights to a three-book middle-grade series written by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini. The series, House of Secrets, is set in a large, mysterious house in San Francisco that was built by a troubled fantasy writer. The first book in the series is set to be published in Spring 2013.

Here is a description of the series from HarperCollins:

The Pagett kids had it all: loving parents, a big house in San Francisco, all the latest video games . . . But everything changed when their father lost his job as a result of an inexplicable transgression. Now the family is moving into Kristoff House, a mysterious place built nearly a century earlier by a troubled fantasy writer with a penchant for the occult. Suddenly the siblings find themselves launched on an epic journey into a mash-up world born of Kristoff's dangerous imagination, to retrieve a dark book of untold power, uncover the Pagett family's secret history and save their parents . . . and maybe even the world.

Columbus has directed many films, including the first two Harry Potter movies and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Columbus also wrote the screenplays for the Gremlins and Goonies movies. Ned Vizzini is the author of It's Kind of a Funny Story, Be More Chill, Teen Angst? Naaaah..., and the forthcoming The Other Normals.

Columbus says, "The opportunity to write this novel is a dream come true. I have lived with the characters of this novel and their world for many years, and was saving them for something very special. Working on House of Secrets with Ned has been a thrill."