Gallery Keeps Clayton
At Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books imprint, Micki Nuding signed a new four-title deal to keep bestseller Alice Clayton at the house. The world-rights deal, which Karen Solem at Spencerhill Associates negotiated, is for three full-length books and a novella. The first book, Rusty Nailed, will launch a new series called Cocktail, featuring characters from Clayton’s popular Wallbanger (Gallery, Feb. 2013); it is scheduled for June 2014. Rounding out the series next year will be Screwdrivered and Mai Tai’d Up, set for September and December, respectively.

Ellis Re-ups at Knopf
At Knopf, Dan Frank closed a two-book deal with historian, and Pulitzer-winner, Joseph Ellis (American Sphinx). John Taylor “Ike” Williams at Kneerim, Williams & Bloom represented Ellis, and the first book, Knopf said, will “break new ground in the history of the American Revolution, through its portrayal of the individuals who managed to rescue the Confederation from dissolution and achieve a Republic.”

Goldman Talks for BenBella
Kim Goldman, whose brother Ron was killed in the infamous murder that O.J. Simpson was accused (but never convicted) of committing, has sold world rights to her memoir to Glenn Yeffeth at BenBella Books. Michael Wright at Garson & Wright represented Goldman, and the book, Kim Goldman: A Memoir, is set for spring 2015. The book is, said a rep for Goldman, “a realistic look at how one copes and dances through life’s difficulties.”

‘Swashbucklers’ to Pegasus
Pegasus Books’ Claiborne Hancock bought world rights to an anthology called The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure, assembled by role-playing-game designer Lawrence Schick, from Philip Turner at Philip Turner Book Productions. Schick, who will be doing the book under the pen name Lawrence Ellsworth, will feature classic adventure fiction in the collection; it will include a translation of a lost work by Alexander Dumas and a piece by Pierce Egan, who wrote Robin Hood. Swashbuckling is set for a fall 2014 publication.

Hall Closes Double
In the first of two deals, Kirsten Hall at the Bright Group sold world rights to author/illustrator Charlie Alder’s picture book Daredevil Duck to Running Press Kids. Marlo Scrimizzi bought the book, which is set for spring 2015 and is about, per Hall, “a skittish duck [who] wants to be brave despite being afraid.”
In the second deal, Hall represented illustrator Ben Mantle in the sale of the picture book Land Shark, which is being written by Beth Ferry (Stick & Stone). Melissa Manlove at Chronicle Children’s Books acquired the title, which Hall said is about a little boy who gets a birthday present that is not the gift he requested. Manlove took world rights, and Ferry was represented by Elena Giovinazzo at Pippin Properties.

Briefs
At Da Capo, Robert Pigeon bought world rights to two new books by Stephen Harding from agent Scott Mendel at Mendel Media. The first book, Last to Die, is set for June 2015 and follows a young U.S. Air Force sergeant who died while flying over Tokyo, days after Japan’s surrender in WWII. Da Capo said the book looks at how “his death might have prolonged the war and changed history.” The second book, The Castaway’s War, set for 2016, is about a Navy lieutenant who, after getting stranded in the South Pacific in 1943, “carried on a one-man war” against the Japanese before being rescued.

Kent Carroll, publisher of Europa Editions, took U.S. rights to Damon Galgut’s third novel, Arctic Summer, from agent Anna Stein O’Sullivan at Aitken Alexander Associates. Europa called the book a “fictionalized biography” of English novelist E.M. Forster, and it focuses on the years the author spent in India working on what many consider his masterpiece, A Passage to India. Galgut’s novel In a Strange Room (which Europa also published in the States) was shortlisted for 2010’s Booker Prize.