The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers

November 1, 2023

Orphan Clayton Stumper was raised by a group of enigmatologists. When the group's crossword compiler extraordinaire dies, she leaves Clayton her last perplexer, which holds the key to his parentage. Full of word puzzles and marketed as a cozy and uplifting escape read, Burr's debut has already been optioned by Disney. Prepub Alert.

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February 5, 2024
Burr debuts with the cheerful tale of a young man’s found family and the joy of puzzles. Clayton Stumper, 25, was left at the doorstep of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers in Bedfordshire, England, as an infant and grew up surrounded by the eccentric, elderly residents of the commune, including his primary caregiver, Pippa Allsbrook, founder of the Fellowship and the most prolific crossword compiler in Britain. Feeling unmoored by Pippa’s recent death, Clayton determines to discover the identity of his birth parents. Pippa, one step ahead as usual, has left him with a series of puzzles for him to complete, which set him on his course. His first stop is London, where he visits Nancy Stone, an ex-member of the Fellowship who left Bedfordshire just before Clayton showed up there. As he pieces together Pippa’s clues, he tentatively explores life away from his routines and feels the beginnings of his first romance with Nancy’s home health aid, Neil. The PG-rated scenes with Clayton and Neil feel a bit too restrained—Burr is better at intricate plotting than he is at portraying Clayton’s burgeoning sexuality—though there’s a genuine sweetness to both story lines. This has plenty of heart. Agent: Hellie Ogden, WME.

February 1, 2024
Abandoned at birth and left in a hatbox on the doorstep of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, Clayton Stumper is tasked with solving a puzzle his foster mother designed before her death to help him discover where he came from. Now 25, Clay was lovingly raised by Fellowship founder Pippa Allsbrook, "pioneering cruciverbalist" and British queen of crosswords. The novel alternates between his pained efforts to complete her puzzle, which leads him, step by step, to significant people and places, and Pippa's account of becoming Clay's caregiver at 67 while running the Fellowship. Her challenges include overcoming the opposition of eccentric members shaken by the very idea of having a baby among them and turning a run-down hotel in Bedfordshire that was once her ancestral home into the group's headquarters. As it turns out, this diverse community of "enigmatologists," who attend seminars on topics like "the history of lipograms and univocalics," helps raise Clay. So does Nancy Stone, a female cabbie who's into TV game shows (she was a contestant on Brain of Britain) and becomes Pippa's best friend and ally. Burr's first novel doesn't get much deeper than "it's never too late...to find the missing pieces that make you feel complete" and "love is all that matters." Pithier wisdom is provided by Nancy, who says that puzzling is "good for the old noggin" and "stops you going doolally when you're old." But the book's sweet-tempered storytelling and game-playing element are appealing and its characters good company even when not much is happening. A nice novel best enjoyed by crossword fans.

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March 1, 2024
In the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers--communal home for England's best and brightest quiz masters, cruciverbalists, and cryptographers--Clayton is the biggest enigma of all. He's not a puzzlemaker. He just showed up on their doorstep as a baby, left in a hatbox. The fellowship, led by the esteemed Pippa Allsbrook, took Clayton in and raised him, and he never really left the safety of the rambling country manor they all share. Now Pippa has died, and Clayton is determined to finally solve the riddle of his origins. His adoptive mother may no longer be available to ask, but she did leave him one last gift--a puzzle to lead him on the adventure of self-discovery. The story flips between Clayton's journey and Pippa's efforts to establish the fellowship decades earlier. Featuring a love story (or two), puzzles for both the readers and the characters, and a hatbox full of charm, Burr's debut is rounded out by a plethora of eccentric characters and gentle humor. This will appeal to fans of Phaedra Patrick's The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper (2016).

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