Blake Gets ‘Frosty’ at LBYR
Deirdre Jones at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers took North American right in a three-book deal to Elly Blake’s Frostblood Saga. The first book, Frostblood, set for January 2017, follows a 17-year-old girl who must hide her powers from the ruling class; describing the YA series, LBYR said it depicts “a world where flame and ice are mortal enemies—but together create a power that could change everything.” The publication schedule will see the books released less than a year apart, with book two set for fall 2017 and book three for summer 2018. LBYR’s acquisition also follows on the heels of strong foreign sales. In the U.K. the series was preempted by Hodder & Stoughton, and in Germany it was bought for six figures by Ravensburger. Suzie Townsend at New Leaf Literary & Media represented Blake in the LBYR deal.
FSG Lands John Waters’s Debut Novel
In a two-book deal, Jonathan Galassi at Farrar, Straus and Giroux took North American rights to a new essay collection and the first novel by cult filmmaker John Waters. FSG said the novel, Liarmouth, is a “feel-bad romance” about a woman on the lam—she steals suitcases from airports—whose life is changed when she meets “one man who makes her tell the truth.” The essay collection, Mr. Know It All, explores how to remain rebellious and inappropriate even in old age. FSG said the book will examine such questions as “Why do gay people have to be nice now? Is it ever appropriate to take LSD when you are 70 years old? How does it feel to claw your way to the top of Hollywood and then slide right back down again?” Bill Clegg at the Clegg Agency represented Waters in the deal.
Morrow Explores ‘Muslim Mafia’
For HarperCollins’s William Morrow imprint, Peter Hubbard took world rights to Haroon K. Ullah’s The Muslim Mafia, a nonfiction book about the group of families controlling the opiate trade in the “Af-Pak” region of the Middle East. Ullah, a former research fellow at the Kennedy School who now works as a policy advisor to Secretary of State John Kerry, focuses on these families’ activities and, Morrow said, how they maintain a “complicated, often contradictory, interaction with U.S. international and domestic policy.” Jacques de Spoelberch at J. de S. Associates brokered the deal for Ullah.
‘Rich’ Millennial Takes His Pitch to Tarcher
Daniel DiPiazza, who’s behind the brand Rich20Something, sold a book of the same title to Penguin Random House’s Perigee Tarcher imprint. Stephanie Bowen took North American rights to the book, which will be a guide for aspiring young entrepreneurs, at auction. The publisher said Rich20Something will be a step-by-step companion to help millennials “start a business they care about and turn that into a career and life they love.” DiPiazza himself turned a blog offering advice on how to escape the 9-to-5 grind into a paid Web series and a podcast. Kristen Neuhaus at Foundry Literary + Media sold the book, which is set for spring 2017.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Suzie Townsend, not Kathleen Ortiz, is the agent for Elly Blake. Additionally, the name of the imprint that will publish Rich20Something is Perigee Tarcher, and not simply Tarcher.
