Dutton Kids Re-Ups Condie
Ally Condie, who wrote the bestselling Match trilogy for Dutton Children’s Books, has inked a new deal with the publisher for two novels. Julie Strauss-Gabel bought North American rights in the deal from agent Jodi Reamer at Writers House; the first book, set for fall 2014, will follow a girl named Rio living in an underwater city, who has been waiting for her chance to find out what lies beyond the sea. The second book is not currently scheduled.
SMP Grabs Bladerunner Book
Charles Spicer, executive editor at St. Martin’s Press, took U.S. rights to a book about the Oscar Pistorius scandal by two South African reporters covering the story. Mandy Wiener and Barry Bateman’s Behind the Door: The Oscar and Reeva Story is set to be released once Pistorius’s trial concludes. (Pistorius, a South African, was the first double-leg amputee to participate in an Olympic event when he qualified for the 2012 Summer Games; he is currently being tried for murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.) SMP, which bought the rights from Macmillan South Africa’s Terry Morris, said the book will “relate the courtroom interactions and unpack the forensic and circumstantial evidence, as well as build the back-story of the police investigation.”
Gordon Gets with the ‘Band’
Founding member (as well as vocalist, guitarist, and bassist) of Sonic youth, Kim Gordon, sold a memoir to Carrie Thornton at It Books. In Girl in a Band, to which Henry Dunow at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner sold U.S., Canadian, and open-market rights, Gordon will, the publisher said, chronicle her choice to leave Los Angeles in the early ’80s for the post-punk scene in New York City, where she formed Sonic Youth, a group that went on to mentor acts like Nirvana and Hole.
Chez Panisse Alum to S&S
Samin Nosrat, a former cook at Chez Panisse who also studied under Michael Pollan at U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, sold Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat to Michael Szczerban at Simon & Schuster. ICM’s Kari Stuart brokered the North American English (along with world translation) rights deal, and the book, which S&S called a “master class on the four basic elements of good cooking,” will also feature illustrations by Wendy MacNaughton. The book will combine essays, stories, and recipes to teach readers, S&S elaborated, how to “instinctively create terrific dishes from whatever you have at home.” S&S noted that it acquired the book in an “intense auction.”
Katherine Tegen Invests in Debut
At HarperCollins’s Katherine Tegen Books imprint, Jill Davis preempted North American rights, for six figures, to two books by debut novelist Moriah McStay. Steven Chudney, who has an eponymous shingle, represented the author, and the first title, tentatively called Progression of Fates, is scheduled for 2014. The book, Chudney said, is narrated in “alternating parallel voices” by the same girl after a fateful event: there is Fiona, who has been facially scarred, and Fi, who has, in Chudney’s words, “a perfect face.”
Applegate Returns to Feiwel
Recent Newbery Medalist Katherine Applegate has signed with Feiwel and Friends to do two middle-grade novels. Jean Feiwel and Liz Szabla bought North American rights from Elena Mechlin at Pippin Properties. The deal marks a return for the lauded author, whose books Home of the Brave (2007) and Eve and Adam (2012) were also published by the Macmillan Children’s imprint.
Pegasus Goes On ‘Chase’ With Taber
Jessica Case at Pegasus Books preempted world English rights to George Taber’s Chasing Gold: The Incredible Story Behind the Nazi Search for Europe’s Bullion from agent Harvey Klinger, who runs his own agency. The title, set for January 2015, will, Case said, “reveal the intricacies of the Nazi effort to finance history’s bloodiest war.”
Putnam Buys Boyce Series
Sara Minnich at G.P. Putnam’s Sons bought world rights to three books in a police procedural series by Trudy Nan Boyce. Agent Nat Sobel at Sobel Weber Associates struck the deal, and the first book in the trilogy is scheduled for spring 2015. Boyce, who has a Ph.D. in psychology and counseling from Georgia State, worked for the Atlanta Police Department for over 30 years in a range of roles, from beat cop to hostage negotiator. She retired from the department in 2008.
Morrow ‘Redirects’ Matis
Aspen Matis sold her debut, a memoir called Knapsacked: A Life Redirected North, to Lisa Sharkey at William Morrow. The book grew out of a Modern Love column by Matis that the New York Times that ran last spring—it was called “A Hiker’s Guide to Healing”—and the book will be about the author’s experiences after leaving college to hike the over-2,000-mile-long Pacific Crest Trail (which runs from Mexico, through California, to Canada) in order to, in part, cope with being raped. Agent Andrew Blauner, of Blauner Books Literary Agency, closed the sale and Matthew Snyder at CAA is handling the film rights. Matis is now 23, and the book is scheduled to publish in 2014.
Briefs
Sarah Branham at Atria signed Ellen Hopkins to a new world rights, two-book deal. Laura Rennert at Andrea Brown Literary represented Hopkins, a YA author whose two recent adult novels, Triangles (2011) and Collateral (2012), were also published by Atria. The first book in this deal, Tangled, is about a 40-something divorcée who thinks she’s found Mr. Right, until his teenage sons make her suspect otherwise.
Elliot Tiber sold a memoir called After Woodstock to Rudy Shur at Square One Publishers. The book is the third title in a trilogy by Tiber that began with the 2007 memoir Taking Woodstock (also published by Square One, and the basis of the 2009 film of the same name). Shur bought world rights to After Woodstock from Neil Burstein, and the book is scheduled for August 2013.
U.S. rights to Booker-shortlisted author Deborah Levy’s new novel, Hot Milk, were bought by Lea Beresford at Bloomsbury. The book, Bloomsbury said, is a “thriller of symptoms” and follows “a dynamic hypochondriac and her furious, downtrodden adult daughter.” Victoria Hobbs at A.M. Heath brokered the deal, which also includes Levy’s memoir Things I Don’t Want to Know, her short story collection Black Vodka (just published in the U.K.), and three other backlist novels.
Random House’s Susanna Porter bought world rights, at auction, to John Marshall’s memoir One Complete Circle. Marshall is a TV broadcaster in Maine, and agent Jill Grinberg, who has an eponymous outfit and handled the sale, said the book, subtitled How Volunteering Their Way Around the World Changed One Family’s World Forever, was inspired by “the growing travel trend known as ‘voluntourism.’”
