Viking Goes Celtic with Tompkins
Carole DeSanti, v-p and editor at large at Viking, preempted world English rights to Mark Tompkins’s debut, Last Days of Magic. Tompkins was represented by Stephanie Cabot at the Gernert Company, and the novel, which Viking said blends biblical lore and Irish mythology, is set for a winter-spring 2016 release. The publisher added that the book “pits the Celtic faeries and other early creations against the Church of Rome and the ambitions of England’s Richard II.” Tompkins is an entrepreneur who founded the Aspen Writers’ Network and sits on the board of the Aspen Writers’ Foundation.

HMH Takes Barnett’s Buzzed-About ‘Versions’
U.K. journalist Laura Barnett’s debut novel, Versions of Us, has sold to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The book is picking up early buzz in the buildup to the Frankfurt Book Fair and has been dubbed by some scouts as “Sliding Doors meets One Day.” It was preempted by Andrea Schultz for what U.S. co-agent Sally Wofford-Girand, at Union Literary, called a “substantial” sum. Wofford-Girand handled the sale on behalf of British agent Judith Murray at Greene and Heaton. (In the U.K., the novel was acquired by Weidenfeld & Nicholson after a six-publisher auction.) The book focuses on a couple—Eva and Jim—who meet in the late 1950s as undergrads at Cambridge, and charts their future through three different variations. HMH has the novel set for a spring 2016 release, and, so far, foreign rights have sold in Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy, and Norway.

Philomel Re-ups Graff
Lisa Graff closed a six-figure, two-book deal with her current publisher, Philomel. Michael Green took North American rights in the transaction from Stephen Barbara at Foundry Literary + Media. Graff, longlisted for the National Book Award for 2013’s A Tangle of Knots, will be writing two new middle-grade novels under the deal; the first, A Clatter of Jars, is slated for summer 2016, and the second, Winnie on Wednesdays, is set for summer 2017. A Clatter of Jars is a companion novel to A Tangle of Knots, and Winnie on Wednesdays is about a girl whose parents’ messy divorce forces her to take up residence in a tree house. Philomel’s Jill Santopolo will edit both titles.

David Gets ‘Emotional’ at Gotham
Harvard psychology professor Susan David sold world rights to a book titled Emotional Agillity to Brooke Cary at Gotham. Christy Fletcher at Fletcher & Company represented the author, whom the publisher called “one of the world’s foremost experts on emotions.” The book, Gotham added, offers strategies for “using negative thoughts and emotions to find lasting change and flourish.”

Harper Nabs Stroh’s ‘Beer Money’
In a six-figure deal, Harper’s Jennifer Barth bought U.S. and Canadian rights, at auction, to Frances Stroh’s Beer Money: A Story of Privilege and Loss in a Great American Brewing Dynasty. Rob McQuilkin at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin represented the author, a member of the Stroh family, which once oversaw one of the largest brewing empires in the U.S. (At one point, the family’s brewery produced such popular beers as Stroh’s, Old Milwaukee, and Schlitz.) Today the brewery is closed, and the family’s fortune is almost gone. McQuilkin said Stroh combines the tale of her family’s downfall with the decline of their hometown of Detroit.

Tillemann-Dick Arias for Atria
Opera singer Charity Tillemann-Dick sold a memoir to Atria Books. Sarah Branham took world rights to the currently untitled book, which is set for 2016, from Sloan Harris at ICM. Tillemann-Dick, who grew up in a large Mormon family, contracted a rare pulmonary condition at age 20. After two double lung transplants, the soprano made an against-the-odds return to singing. The book, Atria said, is about “art, music, and romance, overcoming life-threatening illness, and the tremendous power of family and faith.” Tillemann-Dick’s 2010 TED Talk, about the importance of organ donation, has, according to Atria, drawn over 400,000 views.

Crowdfunded Booker Nominee to Graywolf
Ethan Nosowsky at Graywolf Press took North American rights to two books by Paul Kingsnorth, including his crowdfunded debut, The Wake. Jessica Woollard at the Marsh Agency represented the author, who was profiled by the New York Times Magazine in April. Kingsnorth is the founder of the Dark Mountain Project, which the Times described as “a loose network of ecologically minded artists and writers.” The Wake, a postapocalyptic novel set a millennium ago, was completed after funding from over 400 supporters, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. The second book in the deal, The Meadow and the Machine, is nonfiction, and, Graywolf said, explores how we find ourselves in “an increasingly technological, top-heavy and nature-starved world.”