PYRG Throws Down for ‘Sentence’
Sharyn November at Viking Children’s Books took world English rights to The Glass Sentence by S.E. Grove, the first novel in a planned series. The book is aimed at kids 10 and up and is on track for a summer 2014 release. Set in an alternate reality, the story follows a 13-year-old girl who lives in Boston, circa 1891, in a world that has, Penguin explained, been “remade by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all of the continents were flung into different time periods.” When the heroine’s uncle, and the city’s leading cartologer, is kidnapped, she sets off, with a new friend, to find him. Dorian Karchmar at William Morris Endeavor represented Grove, who Penguin called “a historian and dedicated traveler.”
Feiwel Nabs New Angelini
Jean Feiwel at Feiwel and Friends bought North American rights, in a major deal, to Josephine Angelini’s new series, Crucible. Feiwel preempted the series from agent Mollie Glick at Foundry Literary + Media. (In separate deals, U.K. rights and German rights were also preempted.) The series follows a teenage girl who, Glick said, gets caught in an epic struggle between good and evil when she’s transported to a parallel universe where “witches rule and scientists are burned at the stake by an alternate version of herself.” Angelini is the author of the bestselling series Starcrossed (there are currently three books), which is published by Harper Teen.
Doubleday Re-ups Kwan
Author of the recently published Crazy Rich Asians (June), Kevin Kwan, sold a new untitled sequel to his current publisher. Doubleday’s Jenny Jackson took North American rights from agent Alexandra Machinist at Janklow & Nesbit. The book, Doubleday said, continues the story of protagonist Rachel Chu and her search for her past in China. The publisher described the novel as one of “secret bank accounts, priceless art works, social-climbing consultants, and deviant sons requiring piles of hush money.”
William Morrow Lands Literary Debut
Carrie Feron at William Morrow bought world English rights, at auction, to Krassi Zourkova’s first novel, The Wildalone. Fletcher & Co. agent Grainne Fox, who represented the author, said the book was pitched as “The Secret History meets Twilight” and is a literary crossover about a Princeton freshman caught in a love triangle with two mysterious brothers. The protagonist, Fox added, finds herself trying to “navigate the sexual politics and academic challenges of the Ivy League.”
Corcoran Closes Double
In the first of two just-closed, separate deals, agent Jill Corcoran, who has an eponymous agency, sold a new book by Kenn Nesbitt, the current U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate, and J. Patrick Lewis, who previously held that title. Melissa Manlove at Chronicle Books acquired world rights to Bigfoot Is Missing!, which will be illustrated by Minalima. Corcoran described the title as a “cunning book of cryptic poems,” in which, among other things, “poetry lurks in newspaper headlines” and “warnings [are] scrawled in graffiti.” She closed the deal while still at the Herman Agency, and Lewis was represented by Ginger Knowlton at Curtis Brown; the book is set for March 2015.
In the second deal (also completed at the Herman Agency), Corcoran sold Erin Fry’s YA novel The Benefactor to Marilyn Brigham at Amazon Children’s Publishing imprint Skyscape. Brigham took world English rights to the book, which will be released as six weekly e-book “episodes,” beginning October 8, before coming out in trade paperback in January 2014. In The Benefactor, eight high school seniors are competing for a full scholarship to college in, as Corcoran put it, a “do-or-die” high-stakes reality show.
Briefs
Alessandra Balzer at Balzer + Bray took world English rights to Joy Preble’s Finding Paris, in a deal brokered by Jennifer Rofé at Andrea Brown Literary. Preble (The Sweet Dead Life) offers a book that, Rofé said, feels like “Speak meets 13 Little Blue Envelopes,” about a teenage girl whose older sister sends her on a scavenger hunt from Las Vegas to L.A., to protect her from a dark secret.
Bestselling author Tiffany Reisz (The Siren; Harlequin MIRA, August 2012) sold world rights to a currently untitled graphic novel, based on characters from her Original Sinners series, to Jacqueline Tobacco and Melissa Bartolone at the indie graphic novel publisher LVCA. Agent Sara Megibow at Nelson Literary Agency represented the author. The book, set for fall 2014, will feature the heroine of The Siren (which is an erotic workl), Nora Sutherlin, as well as the BDSM club featured in Reisz’s novel The 8th Circle.
Claiborne Hancock at Pegasus Books bought U.S. and Canadian rights to Belgian author Bob van Laerhoven’s Baudelaire’s Revenge from agent William Clark at William Clark Associates. The novel has already been published in Dutch and French; it’s set in 1870s Paris, where a number of grisly murders have captured the public’s fascination. Pegasus is planning to publish Baudelaire’s Revenge in spring 2014.
CORRECTION: This article originally stated there were two books in Josephine Angelini’s Starcrossed series; there are three. Also, Tiffany Reisz is not a self-published author, as was originally stated.
