Joan Reardon – Jill Grinberg Literary Management

Joan Reardon

Joan Reardon is an author and attorney from Youngstown, Ohio. Her love for Midwestern history and folklore inspired her debut novel The Grimsbane Family Witch Hunters, which will be published by Simon & Schuster in August 2024. Her second middle grade novel, Dad Rock Dragon Quest, will be released in Summer 2025. Joan holds a BA in history from The Ohio State University and earned her law degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. When she’s not writing, Joan enjoys going on adventures with her wonderful husband, Ben, and spending time with her incredibly large, incredibly loving family.

Agent

Larissa Melo Pienkowski

Dad Rock Dragon Quest

Author of THE GRIMSBANE FAMILY WITCH HUNTERS Joan Reardon’s DAD ROCK DRAGON QUEST, in which a rebellious future rock star’s hopes to spend an exciting summer with her sister and their daredevil dad are dashed when their mom’s snoozefest boyfriend tags along, but when she learns that her dad is secretly a protector of magical creatures—and one of his creatures is kidnapped by poachers—they’re all swept into an epic road trip full of more excitement than they bargained for, to Anna Parsons at Aladdin, in an exclusive submission, for publication in summer 2025, by Larissa Melo Pienkowski at Jill Grinberg Literary Management (NA).

Publisher

Aladdin/S&S

Publication Date

Summer 2025

Age Category

Middle Grade

Genre

Fantasy

Rights

JGLM

The Grimsbane Family Witch Hunters

Netflix’s Wednesday meets Jodi Lynn Anderson’s The Memory Thief in this creepy and high-stakes middle grade adventure about a girl’s quest to save her cursed brother that takes her through perilous, monster-filled woods.

The Grimsbane women have been hunting witches and monsters for generations—ever since the Watcher, the most powerful witch in the Midwest, cursed the Grimsbane men to die untimely and unusual deaths. Part-time skater, full-time troublemaker Anna Grimsbane may be only twelve, but she’s been learning about hunting her whole life and is tired of waiting to do the real thing. She and her twin brother Billy are about to turn thirteen, the age the curse takes hold, and Anna wants to be on the front lines fighting to break it.

Only hours before he’ll become an accident-prone walking disaster, Billy runs away to find the Watcher himself. The Grimsbane women are all out on patrol, leaving it up to Anna and her friends Suvi and Rosario to find Billy before his recklessness hastens his demise. But the woods are crawling with cryptids, most of whom hate humans, and all of whom hate the Grimsbanes, and the deeper Anna gets into the forest, the clearer it is that reading about witch hunting is no replacement for practical experience.

Anna feels in over her head, especially as she starts to suspect she knows much less about her family history than she’d thought. As she races against the clock to find Billy before midnight, it becomes all too evident that he isn’t the only Grimsbane at risk for a grisly death tonight.

Praise for The Grimsbane Family Witch Hunters

”…[This] spooky, fast-paced read is engaging. Adventurous, plot-driven mayhem.” –Kirkus